Iraqis back U.S. invasion

The people most eager for a U.S. invasion of Iraq may be Iraqis, according to the first serious public opinion survey taken in that country.

Iraqis would largely welcome a U.S.-led attack leading to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, according to the study reported in the London Independent.

Although many Iraqis are suspicious of the Iraqi opposition abroad, a majority from all social classes say they see a U.S. strike leading to a change of a regime as the only way they can lead normal lives after more than 20 years of war, sanctions and economic misery, according to the report by the authoritative Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

"What we want is simply stability," one Mosul University student was quoted as saying. "We have suffered enough due to our leaders' mistakes."

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In dozens of interviews by ICG, Iraqis from all social classes said they saw regime change as the only way out for them. Few oppose an invasion for patriotic reasons or fear an attack would lead to heavy civilian casualties.

"We do not particularly want a U.S. strike, but we do want a political change," said a young Iraqi architect in Baghdad. "We are even ready to live under international tutelage. We have nothing to lose and it cannot be any worse than our current condition."

The survey is highly significant because, in the debate over regime-change in Iraq, the views of people inside Iraq have been considered unknowable on the grounds they are too frightened to express an opinion. The ICG report, based on interviews in September and October, shows the repressive apparatus of the government may be losing its grip.

Support for the invasion, however, is not unconditional.

A civil servant said: "If the Americans are committed to overthrowing the regime, they also must be committed to rebuilding the country they directly contributed to destroying over the past 12 years as a result of their uncompromising attitude toward sanctions."

Few Iraqis were prepared to take up arms, and memories of the failed uprisings of 1991 remain vivid. Arab nationalism seems more potent within the rest of the Arab world than in Iraq.

A student in Baghdad commented: "Nobody believes in this country any more. Everyone wants to either leave it, forget it, or change identity and begin a new life."

The overthrow of President Saddam Hussein will not be followed by a prolonged bloodbath, according to most Iraqis interviewed.

"Contrary to what outsiders think, Iraq will not become another Lebanon," said a retired teacher in Saddam City, a vast, Shia Muslim district in Baghdad. "We are perfectly aware of who tortured and who murdered, and when the moment comes, we will know how to make distinctions and punish only those directly responsible."

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No statistics were available on the number of Iraqis interviewed or specific percentages on responses because of the methodology of the survey.

Retribution against Iraqis complicit with Saddam's regime would also be limited by the fact so many people – businessmen, intellectuals, journalists – have no choice but to co-operate.

There is deep resentment among poorer Iraqis, most of the population, against those who have made money out of sanctions and war.

But there is little fear there will be sectarian warfare between the Shia Muslim majority, traditionally excluded from power, and the Sunni Muslims who have dominated the country's politics. Deeply divided though Iraq is between Shia, Sunni and Kurd, it has never had sectarian pogroms as in Lebanon or Northern Ireland.

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