World News 18-08-2004 Iraq: Do We Really Care? who: British voters what: Put Iraq bottom of their list of important issues, says survey when: This month snippet: Britain is showing signs of "Iraq fatigue", if the results of a new survey published today in The Guardian are to be believed. The survey shows that voters "rank Iraq last out of a list of 10 issues that they consider to be most important when deciding how they will cast their vote in the next general election." Health, education, law and order unsurprisingly top the list, continues The Guardian`s analysis, "but the polling evidence that Iraq fails to excite the voters may explain why Labour`s poll position has remained buoyant over the past year despite the sharply divisive disputes within the cabinet and party over conduct of the war." The news comes a third British soldier was killed in Basra this week, reports The Independent, "during a series of violent clashes with militia forces," and as the selection of a new assembly in Baghdad was delayed by a mortar attack that killed seven and wounded 47 more in a busy street. Ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhim believes that the attack did not appear to be aimed at the conference, but seemed to be intended "to create chaos in the country". Chaos already seems to be very much present, writes The Times` Stephen Farrell from Najaf, where he has been watching machinegun-fire "whizzing along streets where people are trapped in their homes, without water or electricity. Many have gone, leaving only their menfolk behind to guard their houses." Hotel owner Abu Ali says he would rather have Saddam back that live under the fear of Hojatoleslam al-Sadr`s Mahdi Army. "They slaughtered two of our neighbours a month ago," he says, "they decapitated them because they used to deliver food to Iraqis held in detention." An Iraqi journalist nodded his head, sighing: "I couldn`t take any pictures because if I had, I would be dead." [... more]

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