Re: Baghdad polling

["Eli Stephens" <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

It all comes down to the usual confusion between precision and accuracy.
Neither the Times nor Gallup uses those terms, but Gallup says "For results
based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error
attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±2.7%." For starters,
the decimal place gives a false sense of confidence ("confidence" in human
terms, not in statistical terms), kind of like measuring a football field
with a yardstick and then reporting your measurement as plus or minus one
inch. But the most important thing is that this only suggests that a second
set of interviewers, send out the same day with the identical methodology
but a different set of names to interview, would produce a result that, 95%
of the time, would differ by less than 6% from the other result (5% of the
time it could be more).

But the real question, as LPa gets at, is the accuracy of the entire
project, and I would guess the big "catch" is this:

> In a situation of occupation of course there are always pressures for the
> respondents to give the 'socially desirable' responses, which may mean 'the
> response least likely to cause US Marines to shell your house'.

Who was doing the interviews? Were they identified (or likely be seen) as
part of an American organization or the occupation itself? Given the nightly
raids, "disappeared" Iraqis, etc., a lot of people would surely be
intimidated from exposing their true feelings to such a source?

And then there is the key question itself. The Times reports: 67 percent of
1,178 Iraqis told a Gallup survey team that within five years, their lives
would be better than before the American and British invasion. Well heck,
even if the US are total bunglers (which certainly appears to be the case),
just the lifting of sanctions and the ability to import chlorine, medicine,
etc. pretty much guarantees that the most likely answer to that question,
even for someone completely opposed to the invasion and occupation, is
"yes." I find the fact that 33% do NOT think so as remarkable.

One of the more interesting responses is this one: "Mr. Chirac's
favorability rating was 42 percent to Mr. Bush's 29 percent and Mr. Blair's
20 percent." Wonder what that means?

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