Felicity Arbuthnot: Iraq War Crimes , Lies and Statistics

Recently a contradictory, but in important areas, remarkably sunny opinion poll on progress in Iraq, conducted in April, was released. It was, it has to be said, a divide and rule sort of survey as it split respondents in to Shia, Sunny, Kurdish. The Shia, obviously were largely supportive of Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki, from the Iranian backed Dawa Party. However, for those in the West wishing a phoenix to rise from Iraq's ashes, the illegal invasion, occupation, destruction, resultant mass graves of maybe one and a half million beings, the million orphans, the over four million displaced, the unimaginable, near industrial scale, often daily carnage, nearly a decade on incredibly, things are looking up: Around half the respondents thought Iraq was going in the right direction, and that Nuri al Maliki was OK at the steering wheel. Don't mention torture, secret prisons, hasty swathes of executions and a largely more than questionable judiciary. Near three quarter polled said it: Was more important to have a strong leader to keep Iraq stable, even if it meant giving up some freedoms. Arguably then, they would have done better with President Saddam Hussein. He even managed to keep the lights and water on for longer, the streets safe and grenade and car bomb free, with the exception of the occasional car bombs, allegedly courtesy of CIA-backed, former post-invasion, interim, allegedly British passport holding Prime Minister Iyad Allawis Iraq National Accords handiwork. Seemingly, if an election were held immediately, al Malikis Dawa Party would be a popular choice. An unasked question was whether that would be because of of the cited fraud, death threats, confiscation of the life-line ration cards until people voted the right way, as in previous free and fair, post-invasion elections.