THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

PROVISIONAL RESULTS
Shia list: 48%
Kurdish list: 26%
Iyad Allawi list: 14%
Others: 12%
Turnout: 58%

Also, your response doesn't address the issue of the terrorism the US is inciting through its occupation of Iraq. That terrorism is being largely waged by Iraqis, not foreigners.

Informed Comment

Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan
1. Shiites Take Absolute Majority in Parliament Iran...
Shiites Take Absolute Majority in Parliament
Iran Scores Victory in the Iraqi Elections

Lebanese Broadcasting Co.'s satellite television news is reporting that the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), comprising Shiite religious parties, has won an absolute majority (141 seats) after adjustments were made in accordance with electoral procedure. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the list leader, expressed his pleasure at this 51 percent outcome for his coalition. The UIA still needs a 2/3s majority, and therefore a coalition partner or partners, to form a government (which involves electing a president and two vice-presidents, who will appoint a prime minister). But it can now win votes on procedure and legislation without needing any other partner.

Curioser and curiouser:


"Britain Wanted A 'Sexier' Iraqi Weapons Report Claims Scientist


An Australian scientist involved in the US search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq today said the CIA censored his reporting so that it suggested the weapons existed.

He also accused the head of Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee of wanting to to make the report "sexier."

Rod Barton, a microbiologist who worked for Australian intelligence for more than 20 years, told Australian TV he quit the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) in disgust at the censorship of its interim report presented to the US Congress in March last year.

"We left the impression that, yes, maybe there were ... WMD out there," Barton said. "So I thought it was dishonest."

Barton, an experienced weapons hunter who joined the UN search for Saddam Hussein's illicit arsenal in 1991, said the censorship in the US investigation began after Charles Duelfer became the new head of ISG in February 2004.

Barton said Duelfer wanted "a different style of report altogether" which he had discussed with President George Bush and the CIA.

Barton said the report was to have no conclusions.

"I said to him, 'I believe it's dishonest," Barton said. "If we know certain things and we're asked to provide a report, we should say what we found and what we haven't found and put that in the report."

Duelfer's staff and senior CIA staff had stipulated what "politically difficult" information could not be included in the report, Barton said.

The ISG was allowed to mention a find of aluminium pipes but were not allowed to mention that their probable intended use was not nuclear.

The pipes had earlier been publicly described as likely components for centrifuges to be used for nuclear enrichment and were highlighted by the US-led coalition of the willing in the case for war against Iraq.

The report was not allowed to mention two trailers held at the ISG camp which the CIA had previously labelled mobile biological weapon laboratories, Barton said.

"They were nothing to do with biology," he said. "We believed that they were hydrogen generators."

He added, "Charles' attitude was he did not want to inspect them or know. Then he could genuinely say to Washington that he doesn't know what they are for."

Barton said the draft report was circulated to Washington and London.

Duelfer refused a request from John Scarlett, chairman of the United Kingdom's Joint Intelligence Committee, to include new elements, Barton said, without saying what the new elements were.

"Both Washington and London wanted other things put in and to make it ' I can only use these words ' to make it sexier," Barton said.

Barton said he quit immediately after the report was completed and stated in his resignation letter that it was because the process was dishonest.

Barton said Duelfer asked him to return in September last year, saying he was working on an "honest report." Barton returned and said he was happy with the final report.

Duelfer's final report in October last year said Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, had not made any since 1991 and no capability of making any.

Barton said he was going public with his allegations only now, "partly 'cause I'm at the end of this process now, and partly because I think the world should know some of the truths which at times I would've liked the world to have known, but I couldn't say anything.""


http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4130247




So - what are this Barton's credentials?


Here is Wikipedia on this "Iraq Survey Group":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Survey_Group


Here is the report which he says was censored to fit certain agenda:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/






Radio National's interview with Barton this am:

"Govt knew Iraq intelligence was wrong, analyst says
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AM - Monday, 14 February , 2005 08:11:02
Reporter: Hamish Fitzsimmons
TONY EASTLEY: In an interview with the Four Corners program, a former intelligence analyst says the Federal Government persisted with its claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, even though he'd notified the Federal Government months before that the intelligence on Iraq's weapons was wrong.

Rod Barton, a former officer with the Defence Intelligence Organisation, worked with the UN and then the United States in the search for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

He resigned when he says his reports were censored by the CIA.

In the ABC interview Mr Barton also details how he notified Australia's Defence Department of prisoner abuse in Iraq.

Hamish Fitzsimmons reports.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Rod Barton was seconded from Australia's Defence Intelligence Organisation to work for UNSCOM, the United Nations body meant to ensure Iraq had destroyed any weapons of mass destruction.

He's told Four Corners in January 2003 he advised the Australian Government that intelligence it had received on Iraq's weapons capabilities was wrong.

ROD BARTON: My belief was that they had a few weapons retained from 1991, which would be ageing weapons of limited use. Were they a threat? Well, they may have been a minor threat to their neighbours, because don't forget they didn't really have the delivery systems in. They didn't have an air force. They may have been a minor threat to their neighbours, but a threat to the United States, or the UK or Australia? No.

REPORTER: And did you give the assessment that you've just given me?

ROD BARTON: Yes. That's the advice I gave.

REPORTER: No capacity to deliver?

ROD BARTON: Yes, yes. I mean what countries do with this advice is up to them.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: In October 2003, the Prime Minister John Howard said the intelligence on Iraq's WMDs was unambiguous.

Mr Barton also backs allegations the British Government embellished intelligence to claim Saddam Hussein's Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes

He remembers a dinner with David Kelly, the scientist who committed suicide after he was outed as the source of the claims

ROD BARTON: I challenged him. I said, you know, what's this nonsense about this 45? I said, why did you write this David, knowing full well that David would not have written about the 45 minutes. And he was quite embarrassed and he said, oh well, some people put in what they want to put in.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: In 2003, Rod Barton was working as a special adviser to David Kay, the Director of the US Iraq Survey Group

David Kay left Iraq early, as soon as it became obvious to him there were no weapons of mass destruction.

DAVID KAY: It turns out we were all wrong probably, in my judgement, and that is most disturbing.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Rod Barton says after US officials told him what information to include or exclude from his reports, he resigned in protest and made Australia's Defence Department aware of his reasons by March 2004.

ROD BARTON: I wanted to make it clear to them I'd left because I thought the process was dishonest.

REPORTER: And what was their response?

ROD BARTON: They were happy for me being there, because the Americans had requested me. And now, as far as they were concerned, I had disappointed the Americans because I'd left in this manner, quitting.

HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Mr Barton also says he warned the Australian Government that Australians in Iraq were aware of, and even present during the abuse of prisoners by Coalition forces.

Mr Barton says he saw direct evidence of abuse and notified the Defence Department.

He says he was annoyed by Defence Minister Robert Hill's claims in June 2004 that no Australians were involved in the interrogation of prisoners nor did the government have any knowledge of prisoner abuse.

ROD BARTON: My prisoner abuse wasn't at Abu Ghraib. It was at Camp Cropper, the special prison for high value detainees. So what Hill said to Parliament was correct in the sense that he referred only to Abu Ghraib. But of course, he knew about this other prison, where I'd already reported prisoner abuse.

He left the impression that the prisoner abuse had only been at Abu Ghraib and he didn't know about anything else, and that I felt was dishonest. He would have known by then because the department had done a full investigation. I provided all my information.

TONY EASTLEY: Former intelligence analyst Rod Barton. That story airs on Four Corners at 8:30 this evening on ABC television.

AM approached Defence Minister Robert Hill for a response to Mr Barton's allegations, but he declined our request for an interview, saying he wanted to first see the Four Corners program in its entirety.

Through a spokeswoman, Senator Hill also denied misleading Parliament, saying "there is nothing I have heard to date that would suggest there was any error or omission in relation to matters that were put before the Parliament". "

and previously few cared whether it was released or not

I suppose we've got to go through this process, but isn't it just telling us what we knew all along? That the report was doctored, falsified, "sexed-up"?
That we were deliberately lied to?

Shiite Slate Wins Plurality in Iraq

27 minutes ago

By Anthony Shadid and Doug Struck, Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, Feb. 13 -- A coalition dominated by Shiite Islamic parties and tacitly backed by the country's most influential religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, won the most votes in results released Sunday from Iraq (news - web sites)'s landmark elections, but fell short of a symbolically important majority that many of its leaders had projected.


The results, expected last week but delayed because of allegations of vote-tampering, were the culmination of Iraq's Jan. 30 vote for a 275-member parliament, the country's first democratic ballot in more than a half-century and one of the freest in the Arab world. The results represented one of the most sweeping statements of Iraq's shifting political terrain, as the country's long-repressed communities are set to assume power in the National Assembly, which will have to confront a durable, Sunni Arab-led insurgency, persistent power cuts, widespread joblessness and the task of drafting a constitution, among other challenges.


"This is a birth for Iraq, a free Iraq," said Farid Ayar, the spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, which released the results at a news conference inside the fortified Green Zone that houses the U.S. Embassy and the interim Iraqi government.


According to the returns, which are considered preliminary until they are certified in three days, the largely Shiite coalition known as the United Iraqi Alliance won 48.2 percent of the vote, the low end of what its officials had predicted. A coalition of two major Kurdish parties won a surprising 25.7 percent of the vote, and a bloc led by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi got 13.8 percent. Together, the three coalitions accounted for nearly 88 percent of the vote, making them the dominant players in a new parliament, which will choose a largely ceremonial president and two deputy presidents. They, in turn, will appoint a powerful prime minister, who will choose a cabinet.


Negotiations over who will fill those positions began long before ballots were even counted, but the proportion of votes each coalition won are crucial in determining the clout each grouping will carry into the talks. Many of the key decisions will require a two-thirds vote.


Given the backing of Sistani, whose writ carries the force of law among many devout Shiites, leaders of the United Iraqi Alliance had expected to win as much as 60 percent of the vote. Under a complicated formula for the allotment of seats, the alliance may still command a slim majority in parliament, but some of its officials said they were disappointed with their strong plurality. Some privately suggested that they suspected foul play and planned to question the commission on the specific results Monday.[/u]

"In fact, we were expecting a bigger number," said Humam Hamoudi, a candidate on the United Iraqi Alliance list and a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the central players in the coalition.


A representative of Allawi's bloc said that it, too, was disappointed by the results but that it remained in a position to act as a power broker. In that spirit, Allawi traveled last week to northern Iraq for talks with Kurdish leaders. With nearly a quarter of the vote, the Kurdish parties did better than expected, with representation in the assembly that may exceed the proportion of Kurds in Iraq's population.


As expected, Sunni Arab-led parties won just a fraction of the vote. The Association of Muslim Scholars and other influential Sunni groups had declared a boycott of the election, deeming it illegitimate as long as U.S. troops occupied Iraq, and many in Sunni-dominated provinces said they stayed home because of pervasive threats against candidates and voters.


A party led by Iraq's interim president, Ghazi Yawar, won less than 2 percent of the vote, although that was enough to assure his list a handful of seats. A prominent Sunni politician, Adnan Pachachi, did not win a seat, and it remained unclear whether other well-known Sunni figures, such as Mishan Jubouri, had sufficient votes to win a seat.


"The Association of Muslim Scholars is responsible for the catastrophic results," Jubouri said.

Turnout Shy of Expectations

The election commission said 8.55 million votes were cast; about 14.66 million people were registered to take part in the election. The 58 percent turnout fell short of the 60 percent that officials had predicted soon after the vote.


Across the country, the turnout reflected the country's cleavages. In the Kurdish north, virtually independent for 14 years and endowed with a functioning civil society, turnout ranged from 82 percent to 92 percent.


In the country's southern provinces, where Shiites represent an overwhelming majority, turnout was between 61 percent and 75 percent. The highest turnout was in the provinces of Najaf and Karbala, home to the two sacred Shiite cities where the clergy are most influential.


In western Anbar province, where the insurgency has proved strongest, only 13,893 of 574,138 eligible voters cast ballots -- about 2 percent. In Sunni provinces with higher turnout, Shiite and Kurdish parties performed best, suggesting that even there, most Sunni residents stayed home. In Nineveh province, where the restive city of Mosul is located, the Kurdish coalition won two-thirds of the vote. In Salaheddin province, where former president Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was born, the Shiite coalition won the most votes.


The country, still wracked by violence and disenchantment over economic and social hardship, had eagerly awaited the results, which were delayed over allegations of tampering in a handful of cities and provinces, in particular Nineveh, Irbil and Kirkuk. The news conference in which they were announced was carried live on Iraqi television as well as Arabic-language satellite broadcasts.

Jockeying for Position

Under the country's transitional constitution, the parliament is supposed to be seated before March 1. It has until Aug. 15 to draft a new constitution, which will be subject to a national referendum on Oct. 15. If it is approved, elections for a constitutional government will be held Dec. 15. If it fails, a new election for an assembly to redraft the constitution will be held.


The first step will be the naming of a government, the subject of intense negotiations that began even before the elections. U.S. officials in Baghdad have said they expect the entire government -- the cabinet, prime minister and president -- to be announced at once. With the growing sectarian and ethnic cast to Iraq's politics, those positions likely will be apportioned primarily on the basis of the candidates' communal loyalties, a worrisome sign to secular currents in Iraq.

Officials from various parties have suggested that Jalal Talabani, the leader of one of the two main Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, is in line to assume the presidency. His appointment would make a dramatic statement about the shifting political landscape in a largely Arab country where Kurds make up a fifth of the population.

The Shiite coalition has pushed for one of its candidates as prime minister, and the leading contenders appear to be Adel Abdul Mahdi, the current finance minister; Ibrahim Jafari, the head of a faction of the Dawa party; Hussein Shahristani, a nuclear scientist imprisoned under the former government and a confidante of Sistani; and Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress.

The main Shiite coalition is expected to demand the chair of the constitutional committee formed by parliament. Sistani, trained as a jurist, is expected to closely follow the charter's drafting, which may settle some of the most daunting issues before Iraq, such as the role of Islamic law in legislation and the nature of federalism in the country. Another post, still loosely defined, is that of the parliament speaker, which may prove a crucial power broker and could become prominent in bringing a voice to the assembly.

"I think most of the horse-trading will be finished in the next week or so," said an official with the National Democratic Institute, a U.S.-funded group involved in supporting the political process, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Sunni Question
With the vote deemed successful and insurgents unable to unleash the spectacular carnage that many expected on election day, U.S. and Iraqi officials have spoken of having momentum for perhaps the first time since the ouster of Hussein in April 2003. But looming before the government is the question of Sunnis' participation and what role they will play in drafting the constitution.

The Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni-led group that withdrew from the elections, has said it will help write the constitution but not take part in the government. The Association of Muslim Scholars has called the coming government illegitimate, but some leaders have spoken in conciliatory terms and promised to consider a role in drafting the constitution.

Some Sunni leaders have said that much of their engagement may depend on the degree to which the new government moves to eliminate former Baath Party members from the ministries and security forces, the approach it takes toward the insurgency, and whether the United States signals a date, even one that is conditional, for a withdrawal from Iraq of its 150,000 troops. So far, U.S. officials have ruled out any specific timetable, saying their departure depends on progress made in strengthening Iraq's security forces.

Iraq's parties have three days to file complaints about election irregularities. After that, the commission will certify the results and allot seats based on percentages won in the election. Voters also chose 18 provincial assemblies and a Kurdish national assembly. Shiite parties dominated most of the local councils in southern Iraq and Baghdad.

The head of the election commission, Hussein Hindawi, said in an interview that about 12,000 to 15,000 ballots were invalidated because of questions over how the ballot boxes were handled. Eighteen ballot boxes -- plastic tubs that were supposed to remain sealed -- apparently had been stuffed into nine, ballots came in another 14 cartons that were not proper ballot boxes, and 29 other boxes were ruled invalid because they might have been tampered with, he said.

The ballot count announced Sunday will determine the threshold of votes needed to gain a seat in the National Assembly. Of 111 parties on the ballot, only 12 appear to have met that threshold, although one or two of them are so close that challenges to the process may affect their standing.

The actual number of seats that will be allocated to the 12 or so successful parties will depend on a formula to distribute the "partial seats" that would have been accounted for by parties that did not make the cut. That is necessary to fill out the 275-seat assembly. That process is likely to award proportionately more seats to the biggest winner, the Shiite-backed list.

But "nobody knows for sure," said one political observer. "It's a very complex formula."

Special correspondents Omar Fekeiki, Bassam Sebti and Khalid Saffar in Baghdad contributed to this report.

It would seem naive to rule out vote manipulation. The 48% total falls below a symbolic 'more than half', and that certainly suits US PR needs and it suits the desire to keep their hands in the middle of things to steer them according to perceived interests. We'll see what happens now.

... Iraq's Kurds are predominantly Sunni. And the Kurds turned out in large numbers.

How do you figure that the people of many other democracies throughout the world will be better off too, ican?

Also, your response doesn't address the issue of the terrorism the US is inciting through its occupation of Iraq.

That terrorism is being largely waged by Iraqis, not foreigners.

Election Leaves Iraq in 'Quagmire of Compromise'
by Scott Ott

(2005-02-14) -- Results of the recent democratic elections in Iraq show that voters failed to fill the power vacuum created when Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime was overthrown, and instead elected a national assembly "destined to be a quagmire of compromise."

"How can this government achieve anything without a dominant political party backed by a fiercely loyal military?" said an unnamed Iraq expert at a non-partisan American think tank, "I'm afraid you're going to hear nothing but talk and concessions from this assembly."

Neither the Shiites, nor the Kurds, nor Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's party garnered enough votes to unilaterally achieve their goals. As a result each party must reach out to the others to form a national unity government or to achieve concensus on issues of contention.

"It doesn't bode well for those accustomed to the decisive action that was the hallmark of Saddam's government," said the American expert. "This is another major failure of the Bush administration's foreign policy."

After the election results announcement, the popular disappointment was palpable, at least among correspondents in the hotel lounges where international journalists spend most of their days.

"I've already contacted my editor and asked for a new assignment," said one American reporter. "This is going to be like covering Congress. Where's the fun in that?"