Rumsfeld shows Iraq Election Hand Too Early

[mburbank]

Rumsfeld: Violent areas in Iraq might not vote
Defense secretary, Iraq leader say elections will be held as scheduled

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has suggested that parts of Iraq might be excluded from elections set for January because of rising violence.

That violence continued on Friday, as U.S. warplanes pounded targets in the Sunni Triangle town of Falluja and at least four Iraqis were killed and 10 others wounded in an attack by insurgents in Baghdad.

On Thursday, Rumsfeld had expressed optimism that elections will push through as scheduled.

But at a U.S. Senate Committee hearing he raised the possibility polls might not be held in all of Iraq.

"Let's say you tried to have an election and you could have it in three-quarters or four-fifths of the country. But in some places you couldn't because the violence was too great," Rumsfeld said, hours after the leaders of the United States and Iraq met in Washington.

"Well, so be it. Nothing's perfect in life, so you have an election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet," he said.




Okay, so, first of all, if you exclude the areas of Iraq that are most opposed to the US choice for strongman, excuse me, president, who do you suppose will win?

And second

"Let's say you tried to have an election and you could have it in three-quarters or four-fifths of the country. But in swing states, you couldn't because the threat of terrorism was too great, Well, so be it. Nothing's perfect in life, so you have an election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet,"


Say, what of we held an election there where you could only vote for the people we picked, like the one Sadaam held right before we blew his country up? The one where he got, like 98% of the vote? That would be better than no election, wouldn't it? Nothing's perfect. Mission accomplished right? We won , right?

[FS]

I'm fairly certain that Rumsfeld must swallow Botox if he can keep a straight face saying that shit.

[AChimp]

GO TO YOUR ROOM, FALLUJAH! NO VOTING FOR YOU! YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO VOTE BECAUSE YOU'VE BEEN BAD! BAAAADD!!!

[Preechr]

Obviously the parts of Iraq that are still war-torn in January will be sending a clear signal to the world that they do not want representative Democracy, so they just won't be getting any... With the ethnic divisions as they are in Iraq, firing this sort of warning shot might not actually be all that retarded.

Get your shit together or be ruled forever by an iron Kurdish fist!

[mburbank]

While the Kurds are the only faction in Iraq who seem capable of semi statehood, we have no intention of allowing them to play a significant role in any democracy in Iraq.

Though they hardly cooperate with us at all, Turkey's status as one of thefew "Allies" in the war against terrorism gives them the same kind of control over us the Pakastanis already have. That's why we let them deal exclusively with the border regions, even though we know Bin laden is there. It's going to be the same in Northern Iraq. We don't let the Kurds have much power, they don't fuck around with the Kurds.