INDCJournal: "Iraqis are amazed that, for the first time, somebody cares about their political opinion ..."

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October 21, 2004

"Iraqis are amazed that, for the first time, somebody cares about their political opinion ..."

Posted by Bill

Stephen Moore, the former pollster for the Coalition Provisional Authority and founder of The Truth About Iraq, has an op-ed in the 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.

Read it all.

Posted by Bill at October 21, 2004 02:24 PM | TrackBack (3)

Comments

"How dare Stephen Moore go out and collect actual facts!" say the moonbats. "We like feeling intellectually and morally superior!"

Posted by: Joe at October 21, 2004 02:40 PM

Antiwar Ouija Boards:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-boot21oct21,1,1113312.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

With all that's gone wrong in Iraq, critics of the war can take a certain grim satisfaction in being vindicated. Why on Earth didn't President Bush listen to their warnings, which now appear eerily prescient? Just recall what antiwar advocates said:
Sen. John Kerry: "I do not believe our nation is prepared for war. If we do go to war, for years people will ask why Congress gave in. They will ask why there was such a rush to so much death and destruction when it did not have to happen."

Columnist Robert Novak: "It is probable that after Bush orders the first shot fired, anything that looks American throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe could come into the cross hairs of a rifle sight or be blown up by a car bomb."

Former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski: "The United States is likely to become estranged from many of its European allies."

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy: "It'll be brutal and ugly. The 45,000 body bags the Pentagon has sent to the region are all the evidence we need of the high price in lives and blood that we will have to [bear]."

Former President Jimmy Carter: "The devastating consequences will be [felt] � for decades to come, in economic and political destabilization of the Middle East region."

Actually there's a perfectly good reason why President George H.W. Bush didn't listen to these Cassandras: They were wrong. You see, all these gloomy predictions weren't made prior to the war of 2003. They were made before the war of 1991.

Posted by: mike at October 21, 2004 04:44 PM

I agree with Steven Moore's sentiments.
However, Kerry has been to Iraq. He was in there right after the signing of the cessation of hostilities agreement at the end of Gulf War I in 1991.

Just being accurate, that's all.

Posted by: j.pickens at October 21, 2004 07:43 PM