19 March 2007Susan Page
Just 5% say they worry "hardly at all" about the safety of those in their household.
The findings are part of a survey of Iraqi public opinion sponsored jointly by USA TODAY, ABC News, the British Broadcasting Corp. and ARD, a German TV network. The full results from face-to-face interviews with 2,212. Iraqis from Feb. 25 to March 5 will be released Monday.
While some parts of the country have seen more violence than others, almost no one feels exempt from the war's toll.
"There is no life at all," Solaf Mohamed Ali, 38, a Shiite woman who works in a bank. USA TODAY interviewed Ali and other Baghdad residents to supplement the poll findings. "We are eating, drinking and sleeping like animals, but animals are lucky because they are not scared all the time like we are. They don't think that they might be killed at any moment, so I think even the animals are much happier than us."
There was very little trust in U.S. and British troops. By a ratio of more than 4-to-1 — 82%-to-18% — Iraqis surveyed said they had little confidence in coalition forces.
"You have to ask the question, 'Why don't they have that confidence?' " said White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley, speaking Sunday on ABC's This Week. "I think the answer is very clear: Because it is, just as you said, the presence of our forces and the presence of the Iraqi forces and the unity government has not yet brought security to the people of Iraq.
"So the test for the government is whether it can bring security to its people."
The current security crackdown is designed "to bring down the level of violence and give a semblance of security in Baghdad, so that the government can step forward and regain the confidence of the people and restart the reconciliation process," he added.
Poll respondents also said they've seen little progress on reconstruction as a result of billions of dollars in U.S. aid spent since the March 2003 invasion. By a 2-1 margin, Iraqis called those efforts "ineffective."
The lack of security and basic utilities have made daily life more difficult. "I don't attend the college regularly for security reasons," says Ibrahim Mahdi Al Husaini, 19, a Sunni student. "There is no electricity, so how can I study?"
He is uncertain whether he'll be able to finish his studies and unsure whether he can manage to leave Iraq.
"Overall I am depressed all the time," he said.
About 33% saw "effective" reconstruction efforts, while 67% — 15 percentage points higher than in a similar ABC News survey taken in November 2005 — called them "ineffective."
Nearly one in 10 said they hadn't seen any reconstruction efforts begun.
Contributing: Omar Salih in Baghdad. Page reported in Washington.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-03-18-iraq-poll_N.htm?csp=34
