National Opinion Polls from Iraq: US is There is to Rob Oil, 65 percent of Iraqi’s favor an immediate pullout, John Hopkins/MIT estimate that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq because coalition forces arrived

Most Iraqis Favor Immediate U.S. Pullout, Polls Show
Leaders’ Views Out of Step With Public

By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, September 27, 2006; Page A22

BAGHDAD, Sept.. 26 — A strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers.

In Baghdad, for example, nearly three-quarters of residents polled said they would feel safer if U.S. and other foreign forces left Iraq, with 65 percent of those asked favoring an immediate pullout, according to State Department polling results obtained by The Washington Post.

In Baghdad, for example, nearly three-quarters of residents polled said they would feel safer if U.S. and other foreign forces left Iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092601721.html

“Study Claims Iraq’s ‘Excess’ Death Toll Has Reached 655,000”
A man mourns his son Friday in Baqubah, a city north of Baghdad.. The child died in random gunfire near a family home in the village of Khan Bani Saad.
A man mourns his son Friday in Baqubah, a city north of Baghdad. The child died in random gunfire near a family home in the village of Khan Bani Saad. (By Mohammed Adnan — Associated Press)

“estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html

“The First National Opinion Polls from Iraq:

The reason the US is There is to Rob Oil,
Least Likely Reason US is there is to Assist Iraq,
79% of Iraqis want U.S. Out from 2004 to Present”

“A Gallup poll in Baghdad in early Sept. found that only 5 per cent of those polled believed the US invaded Iraq ‘to assist the Iraqi people’; only 1 per cent believed it was to establish democracy. ‘Forty-three percent of the respondents said they believed that U.S. and British forces invaded in March primarily “to rob Iraq’s oil.” 4 percent believed the purpose was to destroy weapons of mass destruction, the primary reason given by the Bush administration.’”

“38.2 per cent of Iraqi people polled in Aug. said democracy could work well in Iraq, while 50.2 per cent said ‘democracy is a western way of doing things and it will not work here.’ (FT, 11 Sept., p.11) In an even earlier Baghdad poll, multi-party democracy was chosen by only 36 per cent of people polled; 50 per cent opted for one of the five variants of Islamic, presidential or single-party rule.”

http://www.j-n-v..org/AW_briefings/JNV_briefing050.htm

“Thursday, May 13, 2004:

In the poll, 80 percent of the Iraqis questioned reported a lack of confidence in the Coalition Provisional Authority, and 82 percent said they disapprove of the U.S. and allied militaries in Iraq.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22403-2004May12?language=printer

79% of Iraqis Oppose U..S. Occupation of Iraq
http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2007/09/79_of_iraqis_oppose_our_occupa.html

The vast Majority of Iraqi Citizens in 2004 said Primary Goal of US Occupation was to Rob Iraq’s Oil

http://www.gallup.com/poll/9595/Gallup-Poll-Baghdad-Gauging-US-Intent.aspx

7 Most Populace Countries of the World Oppose US Invasion of Iraq

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_the_Iraq_War

http://www.notinourname.net/war/baghdad-ad-7jul04.htm

“Four out of five Iraqis oppose the presence of U.S. and British troops in their country”

“U.K. Poll: Iraqis Oppose Foreign Troops

Four out of five Iraqis oppose the presence of U.S. and British troops in their country, and two out of five believe insurgent attacks on those troops are justified, according to a “secret” poll conducted by the British Ministry of Defense.”

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/worldopinionroundup/2005/10/uk_poll_iraqis_oppose_foreign.html

Seven Reasons to Oppose a U.S. Invasion of Iraq

http://www.fpif.org/papers/iraq2.html

“Officially, these armed Iraqis dressed in military uniforms, marching in Baghdad today, were commemorating the end of the Iran-Iraq war 14 years ago. But Saddam Hussein and his government also were responding to increasing war talk in Washington, and asserting their willingness to defend their nation. And on Iraqi national television Hussein denounced those who said were governed by the devil.

PRESIDENT SADDAM HU.S.SEIN (Translated): The forces of evil will carry their coffins on their backs to die in disgraceful failure. They will dig their own graves after they bring death to themselves on every Arab or Muslim soil against which they perpetrate aggression.”

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec02/opposition_8-8.html

Voters in Iraq’s Najaf Province
Voting day brought many public displays of patriotism

During polling, many voters trampled American flags and some signed their ballot-papers in their own blood in a display of loyalty to their leader.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2331951.stm

“Saddam Hussein’s alleged shredder”

In the runup to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, press stories appeared in the United Kingdom and United States of a plastic shredder into which Saddam and Qusay Hussein fed opponents of their Baathist rule. These stories attracted world-wide attention and boosted support for military action. A year later, the reports were found to be unverifiable.

http://en..wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein’s_alleged_shredder

NOT A SHRED OF EVIDENCE

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/11939/not-a-shred-of-evidence.thtml

http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/siteinfo/newsround/iraq6.html

“Forget the no-show of Saddam Hussein’s WMD. Even George Bush no longer believes that they are there. Ask instead what happened to Saddam’s ‘people shredder’, into which his son Qusay reportedly fed opponents of the Baathist regime.”

“Regarding The Torture Of Others”
the torture of Iraqi prisoners by Americans in Abu Ghraib

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503E5D7153FF930A15756C0A9629C8B63

the Red Cross reports that 70 to 90 percent of those being held seem to have committed no crime other than simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught up in some sweep of ”suspects”

To ”stack naked men” is like a college fraternity prank” said the caller….

Unfortunately, as Staff Sgt. Ivan (Chip) Frederick noted in his diary, a prisoner can get too stressed out and die. The picture of a man in a body bag with ice on his chest may well be of the man Frederick was describing.

Most of the torture photographs have a sexual theme, as in those showing the coercing of prisoners to perform, or simulate, sexual acts among themselves. One exception, already canonical, is the photograph of the man made to stand on a box, hooded and sprouting wires, reportedly told he would be electrocuted if he fell off.”

“In January 2006, The New York Times reported that “A high-level intelligence assessment by the Bush administration concluded in early 2002 that the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq was ‘unlikely.'” [18] The Iraqi government denied the existence of any such facilities or capabilities and called the reports lies and fabrications, which was backed by the post-war prima facie case that no WMDs were evident or found.
Former CIA officials have stated that the White House knew before the invasion that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, but had decided to attack Iraq and continue to use the WMD story as a false pretext for launching the war (Sydney Morning Herald, April 22, 2006 [19]). The leaked Downing Street Memo, an internal summary of a meeting between British defense and intelligence officials, states that Bush Administration had decided to attack Iraq and to “fix intelligence” to support the WMD pretext to justify it. A transcript of a secret conversation between President Bush and PM Blair leaked by a government whistleblower reveals that the US and UK were prepared to invade Iraq even if no WMD were found (NY Times, March 27, 2006 [20]; see also the Downing Street Memorandum). British officials in the memo also discuss a proposal by President Bush to provoke Iraq, including using fake UN planes, to manufacture a pretext for the invasion he had already decided on. (NY Times, March 27, 2006 [21]). Best evidence of that false intelligence has been Niger uranium story because on March 14, 2003 (before the invasion) it became public knowledge that president Tandja Mamadou signatory has been forged[22]”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy_of_the_2003_invasion_of_Iraq

“Richard Clarke’s Take On Terror”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356..shtml

As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.

“Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq,” Clarke said to Stahl. “And we all said … no Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. Rumsfeld said there aren’t any good targets in Afghanistan. there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, ‘Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.

I thought when he said, ‘There aren’t enough targets in Afghanistan,’ he was joking.

“I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we’ve looked at this issue for years. For years we’ve looked and there’s just no connection.”

Clarke says he and CIA Director George Tenet told that to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Clarke then tells Stahl of being pressured by Mr. Bush.

“The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, ‘I want you to find whether Iraq did this.’ Now he never said, ‘Make it up.’ But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.

“I said, ‘Mr. President. We’ve done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There’s no connection.’

“He came back at me and said, “Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there’s a connection.’ And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report.”

Clarke continued, “It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, ‘Will you sign this report?’ They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, ‘Wrong answer. … Do it again.’

“I have no idea, to this day, if the president saw it, because after we did it again, it came to the same conclusion. And frankly, I don’t think the people around the president show him memos like that. I don’t think he sees memos that he doesn’t– wouldn’t like the answer..” Clarke was the president’s chief adviser on terrorism, yet it wasn’t until Sept. 11 that he ever got to brief Mr. Bush on the subject. Clarke says that prior to Sept. 11, the administration didn’t take the threat seriously.

“We had a terrorist organization that was going after us! Al Qaeda. That should have been the first item on the agenda. And it was pushed back and back and back for months.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml