Monday, July 25, 2005
Democracy, American-Style: it's fair as long as the "right" people win . . .
GET OUT THE VOTE
Did Washington try to manipulate Iraq’s election? by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
"Getting accurate polls in a country under occupation, with an active insurgency, was, of course, difficult. But the available polls showed Allawi’s ratings at around three or four per cent through most of 2004, and also showed the pro-Iranian Shiite slate at more than fifty per cent.
. . . . . . . .
The concern, he said, was that “the bad guys would win.”
. . . . . . . .
By the late spring of 2004, according to officials in the State Department, Congress, an the United Nations, the Bush Administration was engaged in a debate over the very issue that Diamond had warned about: providing direct support to Allawi and other parties seen as close to the United States and hostile to Iran. Allawi, who had spent decades in exile an worked both for Saddam Hussein’ Mukhabarat and for Western intelligence agencies, lacked strong popular appeal. Th goal, according to several former intelligenc and military officials, was not to achiev outright victory for Allawi—such an outcome would not be possible or credible, given the strength of the pro-Iranian Shiite religious parties—but to minimize the religious Shiites political influence. The Administration hoped t keep Allawi as a major figure in a coalitio government, and to do so his party needed respectable share of the vote.
. . . . . . . .
A second senior U.N. official, who was also involved in the Iraqi election, told me that for months before the election he warned the C.P.A. and his superiors that the voting as it was planned would not meet U.N. standards. The lack of security meant that candidates were unwilling to campaign openly, as in a normal election, for fear of becoming targets. Candidates ran as members of party lists, but the parties kept most of the names on their lists secret during the campaign, so voters did not even know who was running. The electorate was left, in most cases, with little basis for a decision beyond ethnic and religious ties. The United Nations official said, “The election was not an election but a referendum on ethnic and religious identity. For the Kurds, voting was about selfdetermination. For the Shiites, voting was about a fatwa issued by Sistani.”
. . . . . . . .
Ghassan Atiyyah, a secular Shiite who worked on the State Department’s postwar planning project before the invasion of Iraq and is now the director of the Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy, in Baghdad, told me that he and many of his associates believed that Allawi’s surprisingly strong showing “was due to American manipulation of the election. There’s no doubt about it. The Americans, directly or indirectly, spent millions on Allawi.” Atiyyah went on, “As an Iraqi who supported the use of force to overthrow Saddam, I can tell you that as long as real democratic practices are not adhered to, you Americans cannot talk about democracy.”
. . . . . . . .
Did Washington try to manipulate Iraq’s election? by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
"Getting accurate polls in a country under occupation, with an active insurgency, was, of course, difficult. But the available polls showed Allawi’s ratings at around three or four per cent through most of 2004, and also showed the pro-Iranian Shiite slate at more than fifty per cent.
. . . . . . . .
The concern, he said, was that “the bad guys would win.”
. . . . . . . .
By the late spring of 2004, according to officials in the State Department, Congress, an the United Nations, the Bush Administration was engaged in a debate over the very issue that Diamond had warned about: providing direct support to Allawi and other parties seen as close to the United States and hostile to Iran. Allawi, who had spent decades in exile an worked both for Saddam Hussein’ Mukhabarat and for Western intelligence agencies, lacked strong popular appeal. Th goal, according to several former intelligenc and military officials, was not to achiev outright victory for Allawi—such an outcome would not be possible or credible, given the strength of the pro-Iranian Shiite religious parties—but to minimize the religious Shiites political influence. The Administration hoped t keep Allawi as a major figure in a coalitio government, and to do so his party needed respectable share of the vote.
. . . . . . . .
A second senior U.N. official, who was also involved in the Iraqi election, told me that for months before the election he warned the C.P.A. and his superiors that the voting as it was planned would not meet U.N. standards. The lack of security meant that candidates were unwilling to campaign openly, as in a normal election, for fear of becoming targets. Candidates ran as members of party lists, but the parties kept most of the names on their lists secret during the campaign, so voters did not even know who was running. The electorate was left, in most cases, with little basis for a decision beyond ethnic and religious ties. The United Nations official said, “The election was not an election but a referendum on ethnic and religious identity. For the Kurds, voting was about selfdetermination. For the Shiites, voting was about a fatwa issued by Sistani.”
. . . . . . . .
Ghassan Atiyyah, a secular Shiite who worked on the State Department’s postwar planning project before the invasion of Iraq and is now the director of the Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy, in Baghdad, told me that he and many of his associates believed that Allawi’s surprisingly strong showing “was due to American manipulation of the election. There’s no doubt about it. The Americans, directly or indirectly, spent millions on Allawi.” Atiyyah went on, “As an Iraqi who supported the use of force to overthrow Saddam, I can tell you that as long as real democratic practices are not adhered to, you Americans cannot talk about democracy.”
. . . . . . . .
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