WHAT DO THEY KNOW?:

Is Iraq Better Off? Ask the Iraqis (Steven E. Moore, October 20, 2004, LA Times)

John Kerry is playing the prophet of doom in the most important foreign policy initiative of our generation. In Pennsylvania, Kerry described Iraq as "the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time." In New York, he opined that murderous cleric Muqtada Sadr "holds more sway in suburbs of Baghdad than Prime Minister [Iyad] Allawi." In Columbus, Ohio, the senator claimed to have a more accurate perspective on the situation in Iraq than did the interim prime minister, whose favorability rating of 73% among Iraqis, it's worth noting, is higher than Kerry's 48% favorability rating among Americans in the latest polls. Kerry, of course, has never set foot in Iraq.

I was there from July 2003 to April 2004, conducting about 70 focus groups and a dozen public opinion polls and advising L. Paul Bremer III, then the civilian administrator, on Iraqi public opinion. Whatever you might hear from Kerry, Michael Moore, the mainstream media and anyone else to whom defeating President Bush is more important than the fate of the Iraqi people, those who know best what's going on in Iraq — the Iraqis themselves — are optimistic about the future.

Iraqis consistently say in nationwide polls that the situation in their country is improving. In polls over the course of the summer, for example, more than half of Iraqis said their country was on the right track. The vast majority of Iraqis — 72% — see the same benefits in democracy as Americans do: the hope for peace, stability and a better life. Most polls show that 75% of Iraqis want to vote for their leaders rather than have clerics appoint them.

In a recent speech, Kerry charged that Saddam Hussein's brutality "was not, in itself, a reason to go to war." Iraqis disagree, as should any supporter of human rights. Nearly 55% of Iraqis say that toppling Hussein was worth the price of the current difficulties. These figures are easy to understand when you look at another set of numbers. In an Op-Ed article circulated this year among the more than 200 independent newspapers now published in Iraq, an Iraqi democratic activist observed that Hussein tortured and killed as many as 750,000 of his own people. Iraqis don't understand the debate about whether Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. To them, Hussein was a weapon of mass destruction.

Of course the Left can't imagine that anyone would choose to be liberated if they'd be indebted to George Bush for it.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 23, 2004 12:32 PM