The White House Communications Office distributes a “Morning Update” email to reporters, filled with press clippings that are favorable to the administration. Today’s included an interesting headline on the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq: “Most Iraqis Believe Life Is Getting Better.”
And where did this Bush-friendly article appear? In something called the Denver Daily News. Now, Denver has two big papers, the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News, and the Denver Daily News is neither. As Dan Froomkin noted, it’s a “small tabloid that gets distributed for free in Denver.” (As Tim Grieve added, the paper is perhaps best known for a 2005 typo in which it referred to New Jersey as “Jew Jersey.”)
In today’s edition, the Denver Daily News ran a headline that read, “Iraqis Happy.” The White House liked it so much, it wanted the entire press corps to know about it.
To back up its White House-friendly article, the paper cited a poll from “Opinion Research Business” (ORB), an obscure British market-research company, which found exactly what the White House wanted to see.
“One in four (26 percent) Iraqi adults have had a family relative murdered in the last three years, while 23 percent of those living in Baghdad have had a family/relative kidnapped in the last three years…. [T]he poll shows that despite the horrendous personal security problems only 26% of the country preferred life under the previous regime of Saddam Hussein, with 49% preferring life under the current political regime of Noori al-Maliki.
Naturally, the right loves the ORB poll, but there’s reason for skepticism.
For one thing, there’s a more reliable poll available.
A new national survey paints a devastating portrait of life in Iraq: widespread violence, torn lives, displaced families, emotional damage, collapsing services, an ever starker sectarian chasm — and a draining away of the underlying optimism that once prevailed.
Violence is the cause, its reach vast. Eighty percent of Iraqis report attacks nearby — car bombs, snipers, kidnappings, armed forces fighting each other or abusing civilians. It’s worst by far in the capital of Baghdad, but by no means confined there.
The personal toll is enormous. More than half of Iraqis, 53 percent, have a close friend or relative who’s been hurt or killed in the current violence. One in six says someone in their own household has been harmed. Eighty-six percent worry about a loved one being hurt; two-thirds worry deeply. Huge numbers limit their daily activities to minimize risk. Seven in 10 report multiple signs of traumatic stress.
This is the third poll in Iraq sponsored by ABC News and media partners — in this case USA Today, the BBC and ARD German TV — and the changes are grim. In November 2005, 63 percent of Iraqis felt very safe in their neighborhoods. Today just 26 percent say the same. One in three doesn’t feel safe at all. In Baghdad, home to a fifth of the country’s population, that skyrockets: Eighty-four percent feel entirely unsafe.
For another, has anyone ever heard of “Opinion Research Business”?