From: Gene McAloon 

On Mon, 31 May 2004 23:12:59 -0400, "Mark"
 wrote:

>
>"Rich Gauszka"  wrote:  Now the
Iraqi governing council
>doesn't like us telling them what president
>> to elect. Well at least were teaching them how to vote in a democracy -
>> Florida style
>
>Eh, I don't about the FL style, but I was pleased to see the IGC make some
>noise about who they wanted and why. They obviously feel that their choice
>will be a steady hand in the interim period between 6/30 and the elections
>in January, good for them. I thought one of the main whining points was that
>they weren't taking responsibility? Now that they are that's bad too...
>typical.
>
You misunderstand the situation. The handpicked council was supposed to do
what it was told. Initially it did. When they, particularly Chalabi, came
to realize that they were not going to be running even an interim
government let alone the permanent government, they began to balk.

That created an awkward situation for Bremer and Bush's personal envoy who
were trying to call the shots even thought Brahimi was supposed to be
calling shots too. With the council starting to call its own shots, the
situation got out of hand and there it remains.  The upshot is that the
interim government they manage to cobble together will be seen by most
people, including Iraqis, as a miss-mash of Bremer, Brahimi and council
people, with only the Brahimi people being seen as more or less
representative of Iraq's diverse peoples and the others being US puppets or
council people on the take.

The next big scandal is likely to be regarding council member's corruption
as they tried to position themselves to control post war business in Iraq.

It is clear that the occupation of Iraq has been one of the most scandal ridden,
incompetent exercises imaginable, on the ground in Iraq both the civilian
and military leadership and going up the ladder to the Defense Dept and the
White House. It is so bad it would seem implausible even in a second rate
novel. Just unbelievable.

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