Iraqi Public Opinion Poll

Glenn at Instapundit has twice (here and here) posted links to people discussing a poll by Oxford Research International that attempts to measure Iraqi public opinion. A pdf file of the poll results can be found here.

The poll was rather extensive, and I'm still looking through the results. A few things jumped out at me during the first scan. (Sorry about the formatting, blogspot and tables don't mix it seems.)

Q34 - How safe do you feel in your neighbourhood. Do you feel very safe, not very safe or not safe at all?

• Very safe (63.2%)
• Not very safe (30.4%)
• Not safe at all (5.5%)
• Difficult to say (0.9%)

Well over half of the respondents feel "very safe" in their neighbourhood. I find this shocking. Imagine a similar poll of Americans; can you imagine 63% of people in America feeling "very safe" in Iraq?

Q33 - How long do you think U.S. and other Coalition Forces should remain in Iraq?

• They should leave now (25.5%)
• They should remain until security is restored (30.9%)
• They should remain until the Iraqi government elected in December is in place (19.4%)
• They should remain until the Iraqi security forces can operate independently (15.6% )
• They should remain longer but leave eventually (3.2%)
• They should never leave (1.3%)
• Difficult to say (4.1%)

Note that the 2nd and 4th options are somewhat similar. Security is unlikely to be restored if the Iraqis cannot operate independently. In the same vein, there is little chance at security without an elected government in place (the 3rd option). So a vast majority of Iraqis are in favor of the security forces remaining until some measure of stability has been achieved.

Updates are likely as I study the results in more detail.