The Saban Center’s “Iraq Index,” a project of the Brookings Institution, is a ubiquitous data source in the debate over the Iraq war and its aftermath.  The Saban Center home page describes it thus:

The index is designed to quantify the rebuilding efforts and offer an objective set of criteria for benchmarking performance. It is the first in-depth, non-partisan assessment of American efforts in Iraq, and is based primarily on U.S. government information. Although measurements of progress in any nation-building effort can never be reduced to purely quantitative data, a comprehensive compilation of such information can provide a clearer picture and contribute to a healthier and better informed debate.

But it is hard to square this self-description with Saban’s presentation of polling data in its latest edition of the Index, dated April 6, 2006.  At question is the attitude of Iraqis toward the continued presence of Coalition troops. as measured in “What the Iraqi Public Wants” – a January, 2006 poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org

The poll (though not the Brookings presentation of its findings) proceeds quite logically.  First, it probes the attitude of Iraqis toward their new circumstances, then toward their new government.  By 64%-to-36%, Iraqis respond that their nation is headed in the “right direction.”  By 66%-to-33%, they rate the recent parliamentary elections as “free and fair.”  By 68%-to-31%, they are prepared to accept the government established by parliament as “the legitimate representative of the Iraqi people.”  By a margin of 77%-to-22%, the respondents “personally think that ousting Saddam Hussein was worth it.”

And by a margin of 64%-to-35%, Iraqis prefer a time-table of two-years or longer for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces over a scenario in which U.S. troops are drawn down in the next six months.

The Brookings abstraction of the WPO poll cherry-picks these results, then records them out of sequence, in order to imply the polar opposite: a surly populace chaffing under an imperial occupation.  Brookings records that most Iraqis believe that America plans to keep military bases in Iraq.  Then it poses a second hypothetical: If the new Iraqi government were to tell the U.S. to withdraw its forces within six months, would it do so?  And overwhelmingly, the respondents answered no, it would not.  (Never mind that most of the Iraqi subjects agreed with the hypothetical U.S. response!)

Next the “Iraq Index” reports Iraqis’ response to the WPO question, “Do you approve the government endorsing a timeline for US withdrawal?”  Unsurprisingly, nine out of ten Iraqis approve.  They do not want a permanent occupation.

Brookings/Saban never reports the main finding:  that Iraqis themselves want a slow drawdown, lasting at least two years.

Had Saban/Brookings been interested in clarifying these crosscurrents – a desire for American troops to stay, a desire for them to leave –  other parts of the WPO survey could have served.  The poll recorded, for instance, that 59% of Iraqis believe that Iraq will still need security assistance from foreign troops at the end of six months – a clear indicator of why most want a slow withdrawal. 

When a foreign force enters a country both as both a liberator and as an occupier, its relations with the resident population are necessarily complex, straddling gratitude and resentment.  It does not contribute to a “healthier and better informed debate” when an institution as influential as Brookings chooses to ignore the former in favor of the later.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 10th, 2006 at 10:29 pm and is filed under MSM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.