Pins And Needles Time For The Iraqi Election

by Steve

The weekend’s pins-and-needles exercise will be in watching the Iraqi vote and hoping that a major undertaking like this can go off relatively well without security being established to any degree of confidence. Exhibit A of this problem occurred just today when hours after the president’s radio address extolling the bravery of the Iraqi people for even showing up to vote, a rocket was able to strike well inside the American embassy in downtown Baghdad, sending the message that even the Green Zone is not safe.

Bush has sought to declare victory before the polls even open in Iraq on Sunday by arguing that just the fact that Iraqis are voting means success. The election ''will add to the momentum of democracy,'' Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

Hours after it aired, however, National Security Adviser Steve Hadley informed the president that a rocket had hit the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, killing at least two Americans who worked there and wounding four others. The White House reaction to the attack echoed Bush's insistence that violence will not dissuade Iraqis from voting.

''The terrorists will stop at nothing to try to disrupt this election, yet, in the face of intimidation, the Iraqi people are standing firm,'' White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said.

Bush has given the vote such a high priority that he has been on the phone every few days with either interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi or interim Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer, who conceded Saturday that security concerns likely will prompt many Iraqis to stay away from the polls.

Many Iraqis? What does many mean? The White House is assuming that there will be a good turnout, but if hope is lost among the citizens of a deserted Baghdad, again how much legitimacy will there be for any government that is allegedly elected in these conditions?

Yet for some reason, with violence flaring all around, one wonders why certain things weren’t taken into account when planning this election? For one thing, if it was known that many parts of the country weren’t going to be secure months ago, why was a national election still planned, when voting could have been done regionally over a period of weeks so that the insurgents wouldn’t have been able to focus their efforts all at one date?

Second, why not let the south and north vote first and get those regional governments established first so that the coalition forces could have focused their security efforts all in the central part of the country?

Third, what rocket scientist decided to make the schools a primary voting site for the election, knowing that this would make them targets for the insurgents at a time when getting kids back into safe schools would have been a major accomplishment of the new government?

Fourth, if security was going to be problematic, why wasn’t a mail-in ballot considered so that voters didn’t have to risk voting in person?

If we knew countrywide security was problematic months ago, why weren't these things factored in when planning for the election, the occupation, and our post-election plans? Why was the election planned this way if it doesn't advance legitimacy for a new Iraqi government?

Oh, I forgot. Postwar occupation planning was Condi's job. That explains everything.