Bremer says no elections for 12-15 months (This is a huge surprise. Not.)

[Bucky]

Bremer says no elections for 12-15 months
February 21, 2004 (RTE News)

Paul Bremer says it will be impossible to organise elections in Iraq for another year to 15 months for technical reasons.

(What? Technical problems? Can't they just ship some BBV electronic voting machines in? Those'll fix yer "election problems" in a jiffy)

Al-Arabiya television broadcast excerpts from an interview with the US civilian administrator this morning.

Mr Bremer noted the absence in Iraq of voter lists or legislation covering elections and political parties as, he said, a visiting UN team highlighted last week.

The article goes on to report on three Americans getting killed by Iraqis who, for some reason, are pissed off at us. I really wish they'd quit killing our soldiers and start doing something useful, instead.


"Jerry, you're lookin' a little fuzzy there"

[Old and In the Way]

1. Wasn't Saddam able to get everyone to vote last year?

True, he won in a landslide (:-)) but the point is they can carry out an election...why not now?

[mhr]

2. Reported Twice In LBN Over The Last Two Days - This Is Old News!

eom

[carols]

3. In the US or in Iraq?

These days you have to ask...
Carol

[saigon68]

4. No elections til the oil is gone.

You wouldn't want an Islamic republic there.

Besides the sick element of society couldn't be hired as trained killers.

[caledesi]

5. Bremer will resign ala David Kay. nt

[et in Arcadia ego...]

6. Can't the U.S. Supreme Court just put someone in office over there...

you know, like they did with Bush? Surely it's the SUPREME COURT OF THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD now. Like, who needs elections... :shrug:

[lebkuchen]

7. The "technical problems" are lack of security (US forces)

The Bushies are going to keep the troops under lock and key until after the election. Imagine nearly 1,000 US dead, with 850 of them since "Mission Accomplished," in November. Wouldn't play well at the polls.

That 1,000 stat is based on current averages. If the Iraqi partisans were to succeed in repeating the Beruit attack (under Reagan), Bush would be instant SOS (shit on a shingle).

[saigon68]

10. Summer is coming, and the heat is on

The War ain't over til the Berka Lady sings.

And I guess she ain't allowed to even hum a few bars!

[California Democrat]

8. Whats the problem?

Is a year and a half really unreasonable?

After all, we're still waiting for the first free election in Bosnia.....How many years has that been going on?

[Bucky]

9. Good question, CaliDem. The answer is "no and yes."

Is a year and a half really unreasonable?

Yes. Given the current state of affairs, it wouldn't make much sense to just pull an election out of our collective hats and turbans and then hope for the best. There'd be lots of questions about fraud, legitimacy, and fair counts--not to mention the possibility of the usual election related bloodshed that we'd want to prevent. But...

NO. "Given the current state of affairs" is the critical phrase here. The Bushies did not plan to have elections until the last minute. The issue was, is, and will remain their sorry lack of planning in carrying out this stupid, illegal occupation. They didn't put stuff in the works to create a legitimizing Iraqi election until about two months ago.

Before then they were happy to ignore the drip drip drip of American (and coalition, and Iraqi) deaths because all they really planned for was how to kayo Saddam and how to secure the oil fields. They let Halliburton worry about how to feed the troops ("just send me the bill, guys") and let the troops worry about how not to be shot at.

It would be reasonable for them to have had a plan to establish democracy from the gitgo, given their justifications for the war. But they didn't think about that until they started getting clobbered by a suddenly Deanified Democratic Party. They were like "oh shit, tell Jerry Bremer to get some elections going over there before the summer conventions. Stat!"

The situation in Bosnia is a little bit more complicated. Even if it was a showboat election, Iraq did manage to carry out a legal election just four months before we invaded them. That infrastructure would have still been in place after we conquered the joint in April 03. The Bush adminstrations just didn't give a flip about it until now.