PROBLEMS WITH DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
PROBLEMS WITH DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ
Tue, 09-14-2004 - 12:38pm
The increased violence has serious ramifications for the scheduled elections. "We're dealing with a population that hovers between bare tolerance and outright hostility," says a senior U.S. diplomat in Baghdad. "This idea of a functioning democracy here is crazy. We thought that there would be a reprieve after sovereignty, but all hell is breaking loose."

The Bush White House is blithely insisting elections will occur in January as planned. Security concerns, however, have left others less confident. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated this weekend on Meet the Press that "It would be lovely if they took place in January, but I sure don't see it."

Iraqi officials are also increasingly skeptical. One senior Iraqi official told Newsweek, "I'm convinced that it's not going to happen. It's just not realistic. How is it going to happen?" Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari echoed that thought, saying, "The timetable really depends at the end of the day on the security situation."

Some worry that the Bush administration, desperate to avoid the appearance of yet another setback, will stick to the schedule despite ongoing problems. Ghassan Atiyya, director of the independent Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy, warns, "Badly prepared elections, rather than healing wounds, will open them."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5973272/site/newsweek

dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.