# Iraq, better or worse **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 17, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785 "2006-03-17T17:45:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2006, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/21 "2006-03-17T20:06:12Z")
> [@EEMan](#): > > Can we even predict 5 years into the future? Probably not, but we have to try. It’s all part of the responsibility the U.S. assumed when we stuck our collective national fist into that nice lively hornet’s nest. Everything that happens there from here on out is at least partly our fault, and inescapably our problem. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2006, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/22 "2006-03-17T20:07:31Z")
> [@EEMan](#): > > Forget the ‘reasons’ for going to Iraq, or pulling out, or any of the ‘American’ concerns; do you believe the situation in Iraq is better or worse than it was 3 years ago? As much as I’d like to be otherwise, I’d say it’s worse. And I’ll ignore the infrastructure problems, the governmental (in)stability, and all other high-level views. It just seems to me – based on the little I glean from the news, which may be wrong – that for the average Iraqi, the possibility of injury/death is much higher. Not only that, but the general level of comfort/stability has dropped. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2006, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/23 "2006-03-17T20:08:52Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > I was reading a piece the other day where the Iraqi being interviewed made the obvious point: Saddam was a ruthless thug, but if you weren’t political and didn’t take a stand against him, you were probably safe. Now, the danger comes from every which way. That’s it exactly. Wish I previewed first. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2006, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/24 "2006-03-17T20:22:18Z")
The former director of the UN human rights office in Iraq said this: John Pace, who last month left his post as director of the human rights office at the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, said the level of extra-judicial executions and torture is soaring, and morgue workers are being threatened by both government-backed militia and insurgents not to properly investigate deaths. “Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression and thought, you were physically more or less OK,” Pace said in an interview with The Associated Press. “But now, no. Here, you have a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone.” Pace, who was born in Malta but now resides in Australia, said that while the scale of atrocity under Saddam was “daunting,” now nobody is safe from abuse. “It is certainly as bad,” he said. “It extends over a much wider section of the population than it did under Saddam.” [http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1678167](http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1678167) ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2006, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/25 "2006-03-17T20:32:55Z")
> [@EEMan](#): > > Can we even predict 5 years into the future? > > 5 years after WWII Germany was sliced up with the West doing alright and the East suffering terribly. Japan was rebuilding and had a democratically elected government (for the first time in its history, if I remember correctly). > > 5 years after Korea, well it was pretty much like it is now (except that South Korea continued to grow into a powerhouse). > > 5 years after Vietnam not much had changed (they were still in the process of ‘purging’), today they are tending toword a Democratic Socalism. Well, it’s hard to know what predictive value any of this has. I mean, you could look at Afghanistan, where we started our involvement in 1980, and now 25 years later, we’re still at it, and in that time, a significant part of the population has been killed, maimed, or made refugees. The real question is whether we could have created a democractic, or even improved Iraq without resorting to outright invasion and occupation. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2006, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/26 "2006-03-17T20:36:15Z")
> [@EEMan](#): > > Interesting part to pick out; you could have easily have pulled this part. The admin’s been touting reconstruction of the electrical grid as a big success since about the time they declared major combat over. > [@](#): > > When Ambassador Bremer arrived, he said that we would meet pre-war electricity levels within a few months – just a few days ago, we exceeded pre-war electricity generation levels. [http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20031010.html](http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20031010.html) Since then we’ve heard about how there’s been major progress in getting generating capacity and the grid up to snuff on **many occasions**. Now it turns out that we’re back to pre-war levels? Why the heck would anyone find it newsworthy now, that they’ve been trying to fix things. We know that. The fact is, they’ve failed. There efforts count for nothing, unless they _actually make things better_ on the ground in Iraq, where the problems are. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2006, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/27 "2006-03-17T20:41:17Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > We screwed up the power plant system. Early on, we installed a large number of natural gas fired trubines to run the power plants, ignoring the fact that Iraq lacked the infrastructure to deliver the gas to the plants. Later, the turbines were retrofitted to run on petroleum, but they are much less efficient that way. [Here](http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/feb06/2831) is a cite with more details on what John said. It’s from IEEE Spectrum, about as unbiased as you can get. We spend a third of a billion dollars (yes, billion) on the combustion turbines. The reason given - they could be installed faster than the steam omes (which have the ability to burn anything.) No one seemed to have thought of the fuel problem. It is true that insurgents blowing up pipelines are a problem. However, one plant is across the street from an oil well that burns off enough gas to fuel it. The cost, $33 million, would be recovered in three months, since the fuel is now trucked in from Turkey. But we couldn’t afford it - the money went to security. BTW, the cost of electricity in Iraq is 0.07 cents per kiloWatt hour. (In Jordan it is between 1.5 and 5 cents an hour.) No one in the Iraqi government wants to be unpopular and raise the price. The insurgents hurt, but incompetence hurts more. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2006, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/28 "2006-03-17T20:51:27Z")
I consider such questions something of an evasion. The Bushiviks and their minions are eager to rephrase the issues and pretend to a noble campaign to free the long-suffering Iraqi people, They would like us to believe that the whole question of “pre-emptive” war against a non-existent threat has somehow been rendered moot if any evidence can be brought forth to suggest that the aggression and invasion become kosher if a new! improved! set of motivations can be grafted onto the facts. A favorite ploy is to claim that the WMD issue was merely one of many, many urgent demands for us to pour our children and our treasure into a shitswamp. It’s the “Bless his heart, he means well” defense, and it’s bollocks and buttwhistle. That we proceeded under a false cause is bad enough. If, by some accident, the results should be favorable does not reflect well upon the asinine decision made, it would change nothing ever were it true. Which it isn’t. If you bet your money, your home and your ass that you can draw one card to an inside straight flush, and you do it, that doesn’t make you smart. I don’t believe in miracles, as a general rule. I don’t hold a brief against those who do, save that they not be in a position to command armored divisions. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2006, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/29 "2006-03-17T23:12:41Z")
> [@EEMan](#): > > Interesting part to pick out; you could have easily have pulled this part. …your OP was about whether or not things are better or worse than three years ago. The cited portion answered your OP. Why would they quote the part you cited??? ---
**Author:** ![FWorld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@FWorld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FWorld)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2006, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/30 "2006-03-18T11:18:47Z")
As an Arab, I can say that there’s one thing better in Iraq today. Average Iraqis have a say in the governeing of Iraq. No, the Iraqis don’t get the right to excercise their right to live or be safe, nor do they always get their right to free speech, nor do their elected politicians always try to serve their best interest. But they have a chance to get these things in the foreseeable future, and that’s a lot more than what they had under Saddam. Not to say that this could not have been made much easier had it not been for American and Iraqi incompetence. Not to say that I believe that the US’s stated motives for the war. Not to say that the country is free from the threat of a bloody civil war. But still, hope and a say in running your own country are worthwhile. And that’s a lot more than what Iraqis got under Saddam. Whether or not Iraqis’ hopes will be realised is more in the average Iraqi’s hands than it has ever been in the last thirty years. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2006, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/31 "2006-03-18T15:41:29Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > BTW, the cost of electricity in Iraq is 0.07 cents per kiloWatt hour. (In Jordan it is between 1.5 and 5 cents an hour.) No one in the Iraqi government wants to be unpopular and raise the price. > > The insurgents hurt, but incompetence hurts more. Yeah, that is monumentally stupid. What do you get when you keep the price of a scarce quantity artificially low? ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/32 "2006-03-19T04:01:25Z")
Those who found this thread interesting, might also want to check [another one in GD](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=7210291#post7210291). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/33 "2006-03-19T08:54:17Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Yeah, that is monumentally stupid. What do you get when you keep the price of a scarce quantity artificially low? A black market in the same commodity at a higher price. But I don’t see how that would work WRT electricity. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/34 "2006-03-19T09:04:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > A black market in the same commodity at a higher price. > > But I don’t see how that would work WRT electricity. You also get more consumption of the commodity than the resource can handle. Since a black market in electricity is impractical, you just run out. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/35 "2006-03-19T13:40:04Z")
[Generator sharing:](http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2003_11_01_riverbendblog_archive.html) > [@](#): > > We (5 houses in the neighborhood) all chipped in and bought a generator immediately after the war. What we do now is 2 houses get enough electricity for some neon lights, a television, a refrigerator and a freezer. We asked them to ‘save our electricity up’ and give us a couple of hours after futtoor and that’s how I’m typing now. But my time is almost up and I’m afraid if the electricity goes off suddenly, it’ll damage my computer. [Black market gasoline](http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2004_12_01_riverbendblog_archive.html) > [@](#): > > We can sometimes get black-market gasoline but the liter costs around 1250 Iraqi Dinars which is almost $1- compare this to the old price of around 5 cents. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/36 "2006-03-19T18:39:41Z")
You’re asking the wrong question. The question isn’t, “Are Iraqi’s better off today than they were under Saddam?” (Although I believe they are). The question is, “Are Iraqis better off today than they would have been today had there been no invasion?” To answer that, we would have to consider some scenarios: 1. The sanctions were maintained. What would Iraq look like today after three more years of sanctions? Before the war started, the left was claiming that sanctions were killing thousands of people a year. Even tens of thousands. They were claiming imminent societal breakdown and widespread starvation and disease. Would that have happened? 2. The sanctions were lifted. What does Saddam do? If he went back to rebuilding WMD, we might be massing troops in the gulf as we speak, getting ready to go to war. This time against a Saddam with more weapons. The problem with answering this question is that it requires us to predict a future that might have been. Hard to do. As for what Iraqis think, the latest polling I could find goes back to [Dec 2005](http://abcnews.go.com/International/PollVault/story?id=1389228). Then, about half of Iraqis said the country was better off than it was under Saddam, and half didn’t. (46 yes, 54 no). However, 70% of Iraqis said their life was going well, probably because the average income in Iraq has increased 60% in the last two years. And 69% of Iraqis believe the situation will be better in a year, not worse. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785/37 "2006-03-19T19:59:15Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > As for what Iraqis think, the latest polling I could find goes back to [Dec 2005](http://abcnews.go.com/International/PollVault/story?id=1389228). Then, about half of Iraqis said the country was better off than it was under Saddam, and half didn’t. (46 yes, 54 no). However, 70% of Iraqis said their life was going well, probably because the average income in Iraq has increased 60% in the last two years. And 69% of Iraqis believe the situation will be better in a year, not worse. On the other hand I recall there were 2 polls in October that showed less than 1% believed that the occupation brought any improvment, and between 45% to 65% support for killing foreign soldiers, depending on where they asked. One is mentioned [here.](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/23/wirq23.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/10/23/ixportaltop.html) > [@News.telegraph](#): > > Millions of Iraqis believe that suicide attacks against British troops are justified, a secret military poll commissioned by senior officers has revealed. > > The poll, undertaken for the Ministry of Defence and seen by The Sunday Telegraph, shows that up to 65 per cent of Iraqi citizens support attacks and fewer than one per cent think Allied military involvement is helping to improve security in their country. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-better-or-worse/348785.md?page=1)