Four years on, few Iraqis trust America

[KashifAsrar]

Four years on, few Iraqis trust America


Poll: 69% Felt US Forces Made Situation Worse


Rashmee Roshan Lall | TNN

London: Iraq has never been more pessimistic, a new national survey by the Western world’s lead broadcasters — have established on the fourth anniversary of the controversial Anglo-American invasion.
The survey, released here 24 hours ahead of the fourth anniversary of the March 20 invasion, paints a devastating portrait of life in Iraq with the majority of respondents citing widespread violence, torn lives, displaced families, collapsing or non-existent public services and a widening sectarian chasm.
The poll, which covers all of Iraq’s 18 provinces and takes the widest possible sample of opinion from ordinary citizens, finds that a mere 18% display any confidence in USled forces. Less than half of all Iraqis — 43% — said their lives were better after the invasion; 69% said the presence of Anglo-American troops in their country made the situation worse. Even so, only about a third of Iraqis wanted the ‘foreigners’ to leave right now, said the poll commissioned by the BBC, ABC News, ARD German TV and USA Today.
Iraq-watchers said the highlight of the poll was its dismal finding that Iraqis have overall become less optimistic about the future in the year since their attitudes were last computed. In 2005, the year Iraqis were triumphantly hailed for voting in two elections, the general populace was seen to be more confident about the way forward for their bloodied country. The BBC admitted on Monday that “respondents were generally hopeful in 2005”.
The survey is seen as a devastating counterpoint to the American surge and supersurge strategy unveiled some weeks ago by president Bush, in an attempt to fix the worsening security situation in Iraq. The poll also comes amid cheerleading efforts by Bush’s main military ally, Tony Blair, to talk up the outlook for the Baghdad-based government, which is widely thought to be unable to control the spiralling violence both within and outside the capital.
Monday’s poll results showed that in Baghdad, the epicentre of violence, 100% said US and other foreign forces had done a bad job in Iraq. Baghdad appeared to be steadfastly opposed to the presence of US-led forces.

At $1 trillion, war is cheap for US

After four years, America’s cost for the war in Iraq has reached nearly $500 billion — more than the total for the Korean War and nearly as much as 12 years in Vietnam, adjusting for inflation. The ultimate cost could reach $1 trillion or more. A lot of money? No question. But even though the war has turned out to be much more expensive than Bush administration officials predicted on the eve of the March 2003 invasion, it is relatively affordable — at least in historical terms. Iraq eats up less than 1% of the American GDP, compared with as much as 14% for Vietnam and 9% for Korea. AP

 

[PakSniper]

Add medical bills, and repairing of damage vehicles (according to a report their are now 5-10,000 vehicles waiting for repair), and other lend outs, etc yup it's going to be $1+ Trillion.