al-Sabah - U.S. Propoganda tool

From the Iraq go-to person, Juan Cole:

' Will the security problems cause you to?
Not come out and vote the day of elections = 18.3%
Come out and vote the day of elections = 78.3%
No opinion = 3.4% '

"Rightwing pundits like David Brooks have taken up this al-Sabah poll as a cause for optimism. But they ignore the I & R findings. The Baghdad poll is flawed for several reasons. First of all, it was limited to Baghdad. Baghdad is about half Shiite and has a million Kurds, and both Shiites and Kurds are very enthusiastic about the elections. So a poll in Baghdad doesn't reflect the resentments in Baqubah, Tikrit, and other Sunni Arab cities. Second, West Baghdad is more secure and more politically oriented that other Sunni Arab areas. Third, we don't know if scientific weighting was done for the poll published in al-Sabah. Fourth, al-Sabah was set up for propaganda purposes by the Bush administration and its staff at one time resigned in protest over all the propaganda."

Neat, if the first three reasons don’t sway you, the fourth arrives like the proverbial schoolmaster’s backhander.