Negative Campaigns don't Work in Iraq What does it say about the Bush Administration's Iraq policy when in its implementation it manages to make cretins like Moqtada al-Sadr have a popularity amongst the populace that an American Politician would absolutely kill for (of course this is literally true). As cited in the Financial Times, a poll was conducted by the one-year-old Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies, which is considered reliable enough for the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority to have submitted questions to be included in the study.

Respondents saw Mr Sadr as Iraq's second most influential figure after Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most senior Shia cleric. Some 32 per cent of respondents said they strongly supported Mr Sadr and another 36 per cent somewhat supported him.

That's roughly a 68 percent approval rating and includes our northern buddies the Kurds, imagine what it is in the middle and southern portion of Iraq? Oh, and how loved are we? We here from the "Chimpologists" all the time, as recently as Sunday with Powell and the "Three Generals" on Capitol Hill yesterday, that the Iraqis do not want us to leave, blah, blah, blah...um, yes they do...

Saadoun Duleimi, head of the centre, said more than half of a representative sample - comprising 1,600 Shia, Sunni Arabs and Kurds polled in all Iraq's main regions - wanted coalition troops to leave Iraq. This compares with about 20 per cent in an October survey. Some 88 per cent of respondents said they now regarded coalition forces in Iraq as occupiers.

One last scary thing, the poll was taken before the Abu Ghraib pictures. Somehow Daniel Drezner has managed to convince himself that is a good thing, I think Daniel has some good stuff and I wish I had it. It's a good thing simpering print "Chimpologists" like John Podhoretz can manage to turn this gross display of "W"incompetence on those who oppose in this country who take advantage of their currently existing freedoms to oppose his "Lord and Savior". John Podhoretz is officially the "load of the day".