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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With Richard Burkholder
Aired September 28, 2003 - 09:12 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN ANCHOR: We hear a lot about what people in the U.S. think about the war in Iraq. But what do the Iraqis themselves think? The Gallup Organization has surveyed about 1,000 Iraqis around the Baghdad area and found that 62 percent feel it was worth it to oust Saddam Hussein. While less than one-third say it was not. However only one-third feel right now they are better off than they were before the war. Almost half say they are worse off.
OK, to help us put this in perspective is Richard Burkholder. He is the Gallup director of International Polling.
Thank you for joining us from Princeton, New Jersey. We appreciate you coming in this morning.
RICHARD BURKHOLDER, DIR., INTL. POLLING, GALLUP ORGANIZATION: Absolutely my pleasure. Thank you, Sean.
CALLEBS: I want to begin by talking about the challenges of putting together a poll involving people in a country that just went through a war. I mean it's not like you can get on the phone and talk to these folks. Also I presume it wasn't someone from the U.S. doing this. You tried to get Arab-on-Arab kind of interaction.
BURKHOLDER: Exactly right. We started going in early July to build the groundwork for this, just to put together an interviewing team under our supervision, to put together the sampling frame we wanted.
This had to be a real probability sample so that it was accurate. Another thing one has to do is to do it in the privacy of the respondents own homes. We interviewed almost 1200 Iraqis for over an hour. Overwhelmingly they felt freer to express opinions than in the past and the cooperation we go was just terrific. But it was a huge challenge.
CALLEBS: I want to get what they said, of course, in just a moment. But let's talk about that, living under such a repressive society for so long, did you physically get people in a room? Who asked questions? And how forthcoming -- how honest you think these people were?
BURKHOLDER: No, we interviewed -- we did it just the way we used to do this in the States before telephones ownership allowed us to do it that way. We did a pure probability sample of all households in the city. We were in more than 120 neighborhoods around the city, interviewing in their own homes. The cooperation was amazing, 97 percent cooperation. People know that the old regime is gone forever. Only 4 percent --
CALLEBS: Do they really know that? Honestly, they really do know that?
BURKHOLDER: Only 4 percent told us they disagreed with that assertion. And overwhelmingly they told us they felt free now to express their opinions. We used interviewers, actually interviewers from the central statistics office at the behest, under our supervision, at the behest of the CPA who said these folks are trained, they know the city. You can vet them, you can back check them. You can watch all the interviewing, which we did.
But really, the cooperation was amazing. In fact, we had almost too much cooperation in the sense team were trying -- following us around saying, please, you have to interview me next and hear what we have been through.
CALLEBS: You get a lot of that here in the U.S., don't you?
BURKHOLDER: Not really.
(LAUGHTER)
BURKHOLDER: I mean, we get decent cooperation rates, but we don't have people literally begging to be interviewed or giving our interviewers gifts as they left.
CALLEBS: Wow, that is amazing.
I want to get to the one about a third feel they are better off now. What do you read into that? And is there real reason for concern?
BURKHOLDER: Well, that's correct. And everyone has been without electricity. Most have been without clean water for long periods of time. Many have had problems with access to medical care and so on. But I think there is another key measure that has to be borne in mind, and that is if you ask them if five years out, are they going to be better off than they were before the invasion, two-thirds of them say, yes, five years from now we will be better off.
Only 8 percent think they will be worse off. So, 47 percent say they are worse off short-term. Only 8 percent think that will be the case five years from now.
CALLEBS: That is amazing. It shows a lot of hope.
Let's talk about Paul Bremer, reaction to him from the Iraqis. Also the steps that the coalition, U.S.-led coalition has taken in the past couple of month, to have Iraqis providing their own governing body. How has that been received?
BURKHOLDER: Very good point. The coalition -- 50 percent say the CPA is doing a better job than two months ago. Only 14 percent say a worse job. The big reason for that, I think, is the creation of the Iraqi governing council, which is not yet seen independent of the CPA in terms of policies, but which is favorably received. Bremer himself, amazingly, gets a better than two to one favorable rating, 47 to 22. That's by far the highest of anyone that we measured there. And that's because he comes across as internalizing the priorities of the Iraqi people. He speaks to them. He says we have these skills, we have these abilities, we have this future.
CALLEBS: Right.
BURKHOLDER: And he relates to them on that level.
CALLEBS: Also do you think it's the fact that he has taken steps to let the Iraqis have certain degree to say in the way they guide their country in the future?
BURKHOLDER: Absolutely. As I said, he speaks to them on a weekly basis. But I think part of it is the sense there's becoming an Iraqi face on this project as well. That is the cause for the hopefulness long term. Because unless this is their project, and they see it as such, it won't work.
CALLEBS: Boy, fascinating stuff. I know it must have been amazing. You were one of the people who actually went over there.
BURKHOLDER: Yes, I did.
CALLEBS: Interesting stuff. We look forward to seeing this in the coming days and weeks ahead.
Richard Burkholder, Gallup International, polling director, joining us from New Jersey this morning.
Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much.
BURKHOLDER: Thank you, Sean.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 28, 2003 - 09:12 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN ANCHOR: We hear a lot about what people in the U.S. think about the war in Iraq. But what do the Iraqis themselves think? The Gallup Organization has surveyed about 1,000 Iraqis around the Baghdad area and found that 62 percent feel it was worth it to oust Saddam Hussein. While less than one-third say it was not. However only one-third feel right now they are better off than they were before the war. Almost half say they are worse off.
OK, to help us put this in perspective is Richard Burkholder. He is the Gallup director of International Polling.
Thank you for joining us from Princeton, New Jersey. We appreciate you coming in this morning.
RICHARD BURKHOLDER, DIR., INTL. POLLING, GALLUP ORGANIZATION: Absolutely my pleasure. Thank you, Sean.
CALLEBS: I want to begin by talking about the challenges of putting together a poll involving people in a country that just went through a war. I mean it's not like you can get on the phone and talk to these folks. Also I presume it wasn't someone from the U.S. doing this. You tried to get Arab-on-Arab kind of interaction.
BURKHOLDER: Exactly right. We started going in early July to build the groundwork for this, just to put together an interviewing team under our supervision, to put together the sampling frame we wanted.
This had to be a real probability sample so that it was accurate. Another thing one has to do is to do it in the privacy of the respondents own homes. We interviewed almost 1200 Iraqis for over an hour. Overwhelmingly they felt freer to express opinions than in the past and the cooperation we go was just terrific. But it was a huge challenge.
CALLEBS: I want to get what they said, of course, in just a moment. But let's talk about that, living under such a repressive society for so long, did you physically get people in a room? Who asked questions? And how forthcoming -- how honest you think these people were?
BURKHOLDER: No, we interviewed -- we did it just the way we used to do this in the States before telephones ownership allowed us to do it that way. We did a pure probability sample of all households in the city. We were in more than 120 neighborhoods around the city, interviewing in their own homes. The cooperation was amazing, 97 percent cooperation. People know that the old regime is gone forever. Only 4 percent --
CALLEBS: Do they really know that? Honestly, they really do know that?
BURKHOLDER: Only 4 percent told us they disagreed with that assertion. And overwhelmingly they told us they felt free now to express their opinions. We used interviewers, actually interviewers from the central statistics office at the behest, under our supervision, at the behest of the CPA who said these folks are trained, they know the city. You can vet them, you can back check them. You can watch all the interviewing, which we did.
But really, the cooperation was amazing. In fact, we had almost too much cooperation in the sense team were trying -- following us around saying, please, you have to interview me next and hear what we have been through.
CALLEBS: You get a lot of that here in the U.S., don't you?
BURKHOLDER: Not really.
(LAUGHTER)
BURKHOLDER: I mean, we get decent cooperation rates, but we don't have people literally begging to be interviewed or giving our interviewers gifts as they left.
CALLEBS: Wow, that is amazing.
I want to get to the one about a third feel they are better off now. What do you read into that? And is there real reason for concern?
BURKHOLDER: Well, that's correct. And everyone has been without electricity. Most have been without clean water for long periods of time. Many have had problems with access to medical care and so on. But I think there is another key measure that has to be borne in mind, and that is if you ask them if five years out, are they going to be better off than they were before the invasion, two-thirds of them say, yes, five years from now we will be better off.
Only 8 percent think they will be worse off. So, 47 percent say they are worse off short-term. Only 8 percent think that will be the case five years from now.
CALLEBS: That is amazing. It shows a lot of hope.
Let's talk about Paul Bremer, reaction to him from the Iraqis. Also the steps that the coalition, U.S.-led coalition has taken in the past couple of month, to have Iraqis providing their own governing body. How has that been received?
BURKHOLDER: Very good point. The coalition -- 50 percent say the CPA is doing a better job than two months ago. Only 14 percent say a worse job. The big reason for that, I think, is the creation of the Iraqi governing council, which is not yet seen independent of the CPA in terms of policies, but which is favorably received. Bremer himself, amazingly, gets a better than two to one favorable rating, 47 to 22. That's by far the highest of anyone that we measured there. And that's because he comes across as internalizing the priorities of the Iraqi people. He speaks to them. He says we have these skills, we have these abilities, we have this future.
CALLEBS: Right.
BURKHOLDER: And he relates to them on that level.
CALLEBS: Also do you think it's the fact that he has taken steps to let the Iraqis have certain degree to say in the way they guide their country in the future?
BURKHOLDER: Absolutely. As I said, he speaks to them on a weekly basis. But I think part of it is the sense there's becoming an Iraqi face on this project as well. That is the cause for the hopefulness long term. Because unless this is their project, and they see it as such, it won't work.
CALLEBS: Boy, fascinating stuff. I know it must have been amazing. You were one of the people who actually went over there.
BURKHOLDER: Yes, I did.
CALLEBS: Interesting stuff. We look forward to seeing this in the coming days and weeks ahead.
Richard Burkholder, Gallup International, polling director, joining us from New Jersey this morning.
Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much.
BURKHOLDER: Thank you, Sean.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
