Wolf D. Fuhrig

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Iraq’s Elections: A Big Gamble

Two weeks before the scheduled parliamentary elections in Iraq, politicians and pundits in Washington and Baghdad are expressing increasingly pessimistic assessments for the outcome of this crucial project.

Brent Scowcroft, friend and national security adviser of the President’s father, warned that the election “won’t be a promising transformation, and it has great potential for deepening the conflict.” When asked if he shared Scowcroft’s apprehension about an “incipient civil war,” the President replied: “I think elections will be such an incredibly hopeful experience for the Iraqi people.”

In Iraq’s Anbar province, location of the Sunni strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi, the entire 13-member electoral commission resigned and went into hiding. According to the Washington Post, the commission’s head thought it “impossible to hold elections.” He added: “They are kidding themselves.”

When three election workers were gunned down in an ambush on a busy Baghdad street in broad daylight, newspapers carried the photograph of one of the victims being dragged out of his car and shot in the head. This image alone must be frightening anybody willing to work or vote in the election on January 30. No wonder the national election commission is said to find it difficult to hire the 40,000 workers they need.

On the ground in Iraq’s Sunni triangle, Commanding General Thomas Metz admitted: “Today I would not be in much shape to hold elections in those provinces.” No wonder that interim Prime Minister Allawi also conceded that “hostile forces are trying to hamper this event.” The fact that President Bush and the prime minister had three lengthy phone conversations within a week about the problems surrounding the elections demonstrates their concern, as well as their apparent determination to go through with the election.

Under present circumstances, the odds are heavily against election results that fairly reflect the will of all segments of Iraqi society, particularly if most Sunni candidates pull out of the race. Even under better conditions, the millions of Iraqis who have never voted before will find the whole setup complex and confusing. There will be 20 different elections on the same day: the countrywide vote for a 275-member national assembly, the vote for the governing council in each of Iraq’s 18 provinces, and, for Kurds only, the vote for the national assembly of the autonomous Kurdish region.

It is hard to believe that 106 political parties have presented slates with some 6,200 candidates for the national parliament alone. With only seven months for the preparation of the vote casting and in the face of the omnipresent threat of insurgent attacks, there has been very little campaigning and voter education.

It is virtually impossible for the understaffed contingents of U.S. troop and Iraqi police to protect the warehouses where the ballots are stored, as well as the 29,000 polling stations, from guerilla attack, particularly from suicide bombers.

Many Iraqis have suggested that the insurgents might reduce or even cease their guerilla attacks and thus give the elections a chance if President Bush set a definite date for the withdrawal of the American troops. After all, most Iraqis are sick and tired of having to live under some big power’s thumb.

It is with that fact in mind that Republican Congressman Howard Coble of North Carolina recently joined Republican Congressman James Leach of Iowa in proposing that “…troop withdrawal ought to be an option. It ought to placed on the table for consideration.”

I am not aware of a single American politician or journalist who does not want the Iraqi elections to succeed. Yet, to ignore or minimize the obvious dangers posed by another political failure would be a disservice to the American people. At this critical juncture in the occupation of Iraq, the media owe the public accurate accounts of the situation rather than pseudo-patriotic hot air.