[NYTr] All Iraqi Factions Blame US Invasion for Discord, Study Shows

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Dave Muller - southnews

The Washington Post - Dec 19, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/18/AR2007121802262_pf.html 


All Iraqi Groups Blame U.S. Invasion for Discord, Study Shows

by Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer

Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S.
military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among
them, and see the departure of "occupying forces" as the key to
national reconciliation, according to focus groups conducted for the
U.S. military last month.

That is good news, according to a military analysis of the results. At 
the very least, analysts optimistically concluded, the findings
indicate that Iraqis hold some "shared beliefs" that may eventually
allow them to surmount the divisions that have led to a civil war.

Conducting the focus groups, in 19 separate sessions organized by 
outside contractors in five cities, is among the ways in which 
Multi-National Force-Iraq assesses conditions in the country beyond 
counting insurgent attacks, casualties and weapons caches. The command, 
led by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, devotes more time and resources
than any other government or independent entity to measuring various
matters, including electricity, satisfaction with trash collection and
what Iraqis think it will take for them to get along.

The results are analyzed and presented to Petraeus as part of the daily 
Battle Update Assessment or BUA (pronounced boo-ah). Some of the news 
has been unarguably good, including the sharply reduced number of 
roadside bombings and attacks on civilians. But bad news is often 
presented with a bright side, such as the focus-group results and a 
November poll, which found that 25 percent of Baghdad residents were 
satisfied with their local government and that 15 percent said they had 
enough fuel for heating and cooking.

The good news? Those numbers were higher than the figures of the 
previous month (18 percent and 9 percent, respectively).

And Iraqi complaints about matters other than security are seen as 
progress. Early this year, Maj. Fred Garcia, an MNF-I analyst, said
that "a very large percentage of people would answer questions about
security by saying 'I don't know.' Now, we get more griping because
people feel freer."

Iraqi political reconciliation, quality-of-life issues and the economy 
are largely the responsibility of the State Department. But the 
military, to the occasional consternation of U.S. diplomats who feel 
vastly outnumbered, has its own "mirror agencies" in many areas. 
Officers in charge of civil-military operations, said senior Petraeus 
adviser Army Col. William E. Rapp, "can tell you how many markets are 
open in Baghdad, how many shops, how many banks are open. . . . We have 
a lot more people" on the ground.

On Iraqi politics, "we have four to six slides almost every morning on 
'Where does the Iraqi government stand on de-Baathification 
legislation?' All these things are embassy things," Rapp said. But 
Petraeus is interested in "his 'feel' for a situation, and he gets that 
from a bunch of different data points," he added.

Even though members of the military "understand the limitations" of 
polling data, Rapp said, "subjective measures" are an important part of 
the mix. In July, the military signed a contract with Gallup for four 
public opinion polls a month in Iraq: three nationwide and one in 
Baghdad. Lincoln Group, which has conducted surveys for the military 
since shortly after the invasion, received a year-long contract in 
January to conduct focus groups.

Outside of the military, some of the most widespread polling in Iraq
has been done by D3 Systems, a Virginia-based company that maintains
offices in each of Iraq's 18 provinces. Its most recent publicly
released surveys, conducted in September for several news media
organizations, showed the same widespread Iraqi belief voiced by the
military's focus groups: that a U.S. departure will make things better.
A State Department poll in September 2006 reported a similar finding.

Matthew Warshaw, a senior research manager at D3, said that despite 
security improvements, polling in Iraq remains difficult. "While 
violence has gone down, one of the ways it has been achieved is by 
effectively separating people. That means mobility is limited, with 
roadblocks by the U.S. and Iraqi military or local militias," Warshaw 
said in an interview.

Most of the recent survey results he has seen about political 
reconciliation, Warshaw said, are "more about [Iraqis] reconciling with 
the United States within their own particular territory, like in Anbar. 
. . . But it doesn't say anything about how Sunni groups feel about 
Shiite groups in Baghdad."

Warshaw added: "In Iraq, I just don't hear statements that come from
any of the Sunni, Shiite or Kurdish groups that say 'We recognize that
we need to share power with the others, that we can't truly dominate.' "

According to a summary report of the focus-group findings obtained by 
The Washington Post, Iraqis have a number of "shared beliefs" about the 
current situation that cut across sectarian lines. Participants, in 
separate groups of men and women, were interviewed in Ramadi, Najaf, 
Irbil, Abu Ghraib and in Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad. The 
report does not mention how the participants were selected.

Dated December 2007, the report notes that "the Iraqi government has 
still made no significant progress toward its fundamental goal of 
national reconciliation." Asked to describe "the current situation in 
Iraq to a foreign visitor," some groups focused on positive aspects of 
the recent security improvements. But "most would describe the negative 
elements of life in Iraq beginning with the 'U.S. occupation' in March 
2003," the report says.

Some participants also blamed Iranian meddling for Iraq's problems. 
While the United States was said to want to control Iraq's oil, Iran
was seen as seeking to extend its political and religious agendas.

Few mentioned Saddam Hussein as a cause of their problems, which the 
report described as an important finding implying that "the current 
strife in Iraq seems to have totally eclipsed any agonies or grievances 
many Iraqis would have incurred from the past regime, which lasted for 
nearly four decades -- as opposed to the current conflict, which has 
lasted for five years."

Overall, the report said that "these findings may be expected to 
conclude that national reconciliation is neither anticipated nor 
possible. In reality, this survey provides very strong evidence that
the opposite is true." A sense of "optimistic possibility permeated all 
focus groups . . . and far more commonalities than differences are
found among these seemingly diverse groups of Iraqis."