Question time in Iraq…

(1) Why has Iyad Allawi been acting as though he has already won the election?
(2) Why did George Bush call Allawi to “congratulate” him on the election?
(3) Why did Iraqi journalists covering the election in Baghdad and Amara get beaten up and otherwise harrassed by Iraqi security forces?
(4) Why did some polling stations report they did not get enough–or in some cases, any– ballot sheets in time for the elections, and what can be done about such irregularities?
(5) How do we feel about reports that at least some voters voted only because they thought things were still the same as in Saddam’s day, when people were badly punished for not “voting”?
(6) Why is the counting expected to take “up to ten days”, and will there be a credibly reliable and clearly documented chain of custody for all the ballot papers from the time of voting until then?
(7) Will the announced “losers” of the election have good reason to trust the integrity of the whole process, and therefore to explain to their followers that they should concede power (and patronage, and potential oil mega-$$) gracefully to the “winners”?
(8) Does anyone have any reason to believe that this election will have results much different from the much-lauded (in the US) 1967 poll in Vietnam? (Thanks to NeoDude for that link).
… Just asking.

26 thoughts on “Question time in Iraq…”

  6. Good questions, Helena, and I have a few more:
    1) Why did the so-called “Shi’ite list” start publicly announcing a few weeks ago that they would not be allying themselves with Iran in the event they “won” the election? This is particularly curious since they had not prior to that even mentioned an alliance with Iran.
    2) Why did they start making public announcements a couple of weeks ago that they would not be seeking to create an Islamic state?
    3) And for the biggest question of the three, why did they reverse one of their most well-known positions two days before the election by announcing that they would NOT be requesting withdrawal of the occupation forces? This represents a 180 degree turnaround from a position they have openly held since the beginning. It also runs counter to the will of the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi public.
    So, what is going on (as if it were not obvious!)? The answer (surprise, surprise!) is here in the latest New Yorker: “reporter Jon Lee Anderson writes: “A prominent Iraqi politician, who is running for the National Assembly as a member of the religious Shiite coalition, told me that the Americans had quietly let the leading candidates know that there were three conditions that they expected the next Iraqi government to meet.

  7. Argyll, I was interested to go see where you’d take us. I went to the (second) Chris Hitchens piece there, and didn’t find the crux of his argument compelling or indeed comprehensible:
    I can’t see how this compares to the attempt to partition and subjugate Vietnam, bomb its cities, drench its forests in Agent Orange, and hand over its southern region to a succession of brutal military proxies. For one thing, Vietnam even at its most Stalinist never invaded and occupied neighboring countries (or not until it took on the Khmer Rouge), never employed weapons of genocide inside or outside its own borders, and never sponsored gangs of roving nihilist terrorists…
    To me, this argument reeks of putting carts before horses. He seems to be trying desperately to concoct a single stew out of a wide mix of justifications and arguments, none of which can stand up on its own.
    There’s an old French saying “Qui preuve trop ne preuve rien” (If you try to prove too much, you end up proving nothing.) That was certainly applicable to the Bushites’ original “justifications” for the war and it also seems true of Hitch’s perfervid form of argumentation here.
    Poor old Chris. I’ve known him for decades. But something seemed finally to snap in his brain in the build-up to this war.

  8. Helena,
    Concerning your 6th question : “Why is the counting expected to take “up to ten days”, and will there be a credibly reliable and clearly documented chain of custody for all the ballot papers from the time of voting until then?”
    Given the high number of ballots (around 14Mios) I’m not surprised that 10 days are needed to produce definitive results (after all the cross checking and so). However I find it suspicious that there was nothing organised in order to publish first provisory results. From what I’ve read, the ballots have been counted at the local level; they have then been shiped to the Green Zone along with tallies. The ballots are placed in secured rooms and won’t be recounted unless complaints or errors surface. The tallies produced at the local level are now being stored on laptops. The convoy of ballots have been accompanied by observers all along and the UN declared things were OK.
    Since the local poll stations have alredy counted the ballots, I don’t think it would have been very complicated to regroups the results at different geographical level, each level communicating its results to the superior level (from each poll to the village/city, then to the governorates and so one). Getting first provisory results would have been a good way to avoid subsequent frauds : each difference with the provisory results should then be explained.
    As is now, the time lapse between the return of the ballots and the definitive results could allow quite a number of tricks, because there is a lack of transparency IMO.
    The level of turnout should have been made public earlier as well. This level should include two figures : the number of ballots casted with respect to the number of persons registered and the number of ballots casted with respect to the number of persons who were eligible to vote (if only 60% of the potential voters registered and the turn out is 95% of the registered, the real turnout would be of 57% only. So it’s very important to know how the turnout is evaluated.
    Concerning your 4th question (and the lack of ballots), I don’t find it very surprising in the Suni regions where the security situation could account for it (in some Baghdad neighbourhoods, in Mossul, or Falludjah), but it is quite unexpected in Basra or in Nadjaf : where did these ballots go ? Where they confiscated and then discarded or filled up by some (?) willing to stop the UIA lists to gain too many seats ?

  9. I can’t see how this compares to the attempt to partition and subjugate Vietnam, bomb its cities, drench its forests in Agent Orange, and hand over its southern region to a succession of brutal military proxies. For one thing, Vietnam even at its most Stalinist never invaded and occupied neighboring countries (or not until it took on the Khmer Rouge), never employed weapons of genocide inside or outside its own borders, and never sponsored gangs of roving nihilist terrorists…
    More specifically (than Ms. Coban’s), regarding this Hitchinson quote:
    The Communist (Baathist) were always accused of invading

  10. You know, lots of countries count millions of paper ballots in a matter of hours. l Canada just did last year.
    Given the tendancy for things to blow up in Iraq, I don’t expect that kind of speed there. However, this week or more estimate does make one wonder about behind the scense manipulation. Especially considering the history of the occupation to date, and the history of Saddam’s regime before that.

  11. He seems to be trying desperately to concoct a single stew out of a wide mix of justifications and arguments, none of which can stand up on its own.
    There were indeed a wide mix of justifications and arguments from the very beginning, including several that Hitchens omits. What I find interesting is that this very broad-ranging list of arguments has been distilled in some quarters to ONE reason, ie “imminent threat of WMD stockpiles” while the rest have been shabbily and conveniently dismissed as post facto.

  12. Why did the so-called “Shi’ite list” start publicly announcing a few weeks ago that they would not be allying themselves with Iran in the event they “won” the election?
    I thought the main criticism of this election was that nobody knew the party platforms? And yet here you have articulated three rather critical positions broadcast well in advance of the poll.
    Why does “won” receive scare quotes? Are you suggesting that even the count was rigged?

  14. Just World News’ Questions About Iraq’s Elections

    Helena Cobban of Just World News raised several interesting questions about the January 30, 2005 election in Iraq, in a February 1, 2005 post headlined “Question time in Iraq…”…

  15. As further evidence to support Shirin’s most recent post, Reuters mentioned in December that “A U.S. official [in Baghdad], who declined to be named, said he did not know of a deal to bring Allawi back, but said it was clear any Iraqi prime minister would have to be palatable to Washington.” (I had drawn attention to this comment earlier.)
    The US will try to maintain its hegemony over Iraq and use its considerable leverage to coerce the future Iraqi government to conform to its policies. They require first of all that the US military stay permanently in the country in significant numbers (although less than the current 150,000).
    Bush may think that the election will serve to legitimate this situation, but he is likely to be disappointed. The new Iraqi government will find that it necessary to distance itself quickly from the US or risk losing unity and legitimacy (except for the Kurdish regions).

  16. Patrick, I remembered seeing that quote, and have not been able to find it. Do you by any chance have a more specific citation, or better yet, the URL?

  18. “I thought the main criticism of this election was that nobody knew the party platforms?”
    Wrong. ONE of the main criticisms was that nobody knew the positions of any but the two or three parties who had either the backing and protection of the occupying power, or resources of their own sufficient to provide security, and publicity.
    “And yet here you have articulated three rather critical positions broadcast well in advance of the poll.”
    Wrong again.
    1) The so-called “Shi’ite” party was one of the tiny handful of parties that were able to make its positions known.
    2) The only one of the three that was “broadcast well in advance of the poll” was the ending of the occupation. The other two issues were not.
    “Are you suggesting that even the count was rigged?”
    It would not surprise me.

  19. The vote may or may not be rigged – there is little transparency and so no way to tell.
    But does it really matter? Regardless of who wins or loses, the Americans have the last word (or at least they think they do). They are intent on setting the basic direction of the country and will use all available means of coercion to get their way, no matter who forms the government. They want, in effect, suzerainty over Iraq. Of course, this may not work.

  20. “Of course, this may not work.”
    Once the Shi`is realize they have been had, it will be all over.
    By the way, the Bushies have even succeeded in starting to alienate Kurds in Kurdistan (Kurds in the rest of the country have been alienated for some time!).

  21. Asking if Iraq is like Vietnam is similar to asking if Equador is like Finland.
    Or asking if the Boer War is like the US Civil War.

  22. While these may be interesting questions, I think many of them are irrelevant. Obviously the situation on the ground in Iraq is extremely hazardous, security is necessarily paramount and that accounts for a lot of the delays and screw-ups.
    However we need to bear in mind that the Bush administration did not want these elections. They have put a brave face on them, but they had not originally planned to have elections for a number of years, during which they would reconstruct Iraq’s economy along lines congenial to US capital. The elections have pretty much been forced on them by Sistani on the one hand and the threat of Moqtada Al-Sadr & the continuing Sunni insurgency on the other.
    Indications are that the UIA – the Shi’ite Islamic fundamentalist coalition – has done best in the elections, as everyone predicted would happen even before the invasion. That certainly wouldn’t be my choice for a government but it presents a huge problem for Bush. An Islamist-dominated government is going to want the US out as soon as practically possible, it may well seek alliances with Iran, it will be extremely hostile to Israel.
    Bush’s options now are to cut his losses and leave, which seems inconceivable, or to try and ensure the new government has no real power – there are a number of possible strategies for this. But the elections are surely far from being a sham. If they had been, the results would look very different.
    Obviously the US has preferences about what sort it government it wants, but what, seriously, are they going to do if they get a government they do not like? The WMD lie having collapsed they are inextricably tied into the “democracy for Iraq” lie. They can hardly now turn round and tell the entire Iraqi people to F off…

  23. Chris,
    You’re absolutely right – Bush didn’t want these elections, partly because of exactly the result we’re seeing develop – an Islamist oriented government. Sure, they may be a moderate Islamists, but nevertheless much less likely to adopt US policies than the kind of client regime Bush intended.
    Still Bush has at his disposal various means of coercion. He can withhold aid/reconstruction funds. He can threaten to withdraw forces or leave the new government unprotected, thus exposing them to the insurgency.
    Interestingly, a completely stable Iraq may no longer be in the US interest because the Iraqi government would become less dependent on US forces for protection. Certainly Bush will not want the new Iraqi government to try to come to a political settlement with the main Sunni/Baathist component of the insurgency. The first requisite for any national reconciliation in Iraq will be to get the Americans out. This is the last thing Bush wants.

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