Last week, BBC Middle East analyst Roger Hardy painted the picture of a post-war Iraq overrun with “fear,” “suspicion,” and “mistrust.”

Today, however, BBC News World Edition tells a different story: “Survey finds hope in occupied Iraq.” Worth quoting at length:

An opinion poll suggests most Iraqis feel their lives have improved since the war in Iraq began about a year ago.

The survey, carried out for the BBC and other broadcasters, also suggests many are optimistic about the next 12 months and opposed to violence.

[…] About 6,000 interviews were carried out in total, half in Autumn last year and half this Spring, in a project run by Oxford Research International (ORI).

Seventy percent of people said that things were going well or quite well in their lives, while only 29% felt things were bad.

And 56% said that things were better now than they were before the war.

ORI’s director Dr Christoph Sahm, said Iraqis trained as interviewers travelled around the country to speak to randomly selected people in their homes.

The survey reflected Iraq’s distribution of population, balance between men and women, and religious and ethnic mix.

Dr Sahm said: “I would call it very extensive; It is a national survey and it is also representative… the key finding is that Iraqis don’t want to break up the country.”

Meanwhile, an ICM poll of British attitudes about the Iraq war for BBC Newsnight’s special programme, One Year On – Iraq, reveals that 48% of those questioned thought taking military action was the right thing to do; 43% thought it was not.

[…] BBC diplomatic correspondent Barnaby Mason says the American and British governments will take some comfort from the results.

The survey shows overwhelming disapproval of political violence, especially of attacks on the Iraqi police but also on American and other coalition forces.

About 15% say foreign forces should leave Iraq now, but many more say they should stay until an Iraqi government is in place or security is restored.

Looking back, more Iraqis think the invasion was right than wrong, although 41% felt that the invasion “humiliated Iraq”.

Dan Plesch, a security expert at Birkbeck college in London said that the poll was good news for the leaders of countries who began the invasion a year ago this week.

“This poll indicates that Iraqis strongly support a unified country with strong leadership. They don’t want to see the country divided up and they don’t want to see an Islamic government.”

Ahem.

—–