| U.S. halts
elections throughout Iraq
By William Booth and Rajiv
Chandrasekaran, The Washington Post
U.S. military commanders have ordered a halt to local
elections and self-rule in provincial cities and towns across Iraq,
choosing instead to install their own handpicked mayors and
administrators, many of whom are former Iraqi military
leaders. THE DECISION to deny Iraqis a direct role in
selecting municipal governments is creating anger and resentment among
aspiring leaders and ordinary citizens, who say the U.S.-led occupation
forces are not making good on their promise to bring greater freedom and
democracy to a country dominated for three decades by Saddam Hussein.
The go-slow approach to representative government in at least a dozen
provincial cities is especially frustrating to younger, middle-class
professionals who say they want to help their communities emerge from
postwar chaos and to let, as one put it, "Iraqis make decisions for Iraq."
"They give us a general," said Bahith Sattar, a biology teacher and
tribal leader in Samarra who was a candidate for mayor until that election
was canceled last week. "What does that tell you, eh? First of all, an
Iraqi general? They lost the last three wars! They're not even good
generals. And they know nothing about running a city."
The most recent order to stop planning for elections was made by Maj.
Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, which controls
the northern half of Iraq. It follows similar decisions by the 3rd
Infantry Division in central Iraq and those of British commanders in the
south.
In the capital, Baghdad, U.S. officials never scheduled elections for a
city government, but have said they are forming neighborhood councils that
at some point will play a role in the selection of a municipal government.
L. Paul Bremer, the civil administrator of Iraq, said in an interview
that there is "no blanket prohibition" against self-rule. "I'm not opposed
to it, but I want to do it a way that takes care of our concerns. . . .
Elections that are held too early can be destructive. It's got to be done
very carefully."
POLICY CRITICIZED
Iraqi critics of the policy shift say
the American and British forces are primarily hurting themselves by
smothering aspiring leaders who would benefit from the chance to work more
closely with Westerners. In addition, they say the occupation authorities
are fostering a dependent, passive mindset among Iraqis and leaving no one
but themselves to blame for the crime, faltering electricity and general
misrule Iraqis see in their daily lives.
Sattar, the would-be candidate in Samarra, said: "The new mayors do not
have to be perfect. But I think that by allowing us to establish our own
governments, many of the problems today would be solved. If you ask most
Iraqis today if they have a government, they will tell you, no, what we
have is an occupation, and that is a dangerous thing for the people to
think."
Occupation authorities initially envisioned the creation of local
assemblies, composed of several hundred delegates who would represent a
city or town's tribes, clergy, middle class, women and ethnic groups.
Those delegates would select a mayor and city council.
That process was employed successfully in the northern city of Kirkuk,
but U.S. civilian and military occupation officials now say postwar chaos
has left Iraq unprepared to stage popular elections in most cities.
DEFENDING THE DECISION
"In a postwar situation like
this, if you start holding elections, the people who are rejectionists
tend to win," Bremer said. "It's often the best-organized who win, and the
best-organized right now are the former Baathists and to some extent the
Islamists." Bremer was referring to members of Hussein's Baath Party and
religiously oriented political leaders.
Bremer and other U.S. officials are fearful that Islamic leaders such
as Moqtada Sadr, a young Shiite Muslim cleric popular on the streets of
Baghdad, and Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim, leader of the
Iranian-supported Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, would be
best positioned to field winning candidates.
Bremer promises that as soon as an Iraqi constitution is written and a
national census is taken, local and national elections will follow. But
that process could take months.
Ten weeks into the occupation, the cities and towns outside of Baghdad
are largely administered by former Iraqi military and police officers and
people who had close ties to the Baath Party. Iraqi generals and police
colonels, for example, are now mayors of a dozen cities, including
Samarra, Najaf, Tikrit, Balad and Baqubah.
The U.S. military contends that these people have been vetted and were
not in leadership positions under the old government or associated with
crimes it committed.
In Najaf last week, several hundred demonstrators took to the streets
to demand elections and the removal of Mayor Abdul Munim Abud, a former
artillery colonel. The protesters' banners read: "Canceled elections are
evidence of bad intentions" and "O America, where are promises of freedom,
elections, and democracy?"
At Friday prayers in Najaf, Sadr told the faithful at the shrine of
Imam Ali, "I call for free elections that will represent all Iraqi
opinion, far away from the influence of those who have intervened."
FOR NOW, 'BABY STEPS'
In Samarra, a two-hour drive north
of Baghdad, the selection of a new mayor and city council by delegates was
postponed twice, and finally canceled late last week. "There will be no
elections for the foreseeable future," said Sgt. Jeff Butler of the U.S.
Army's 418th Civil Affairs Battalion from Kansas City, Mo., which is
charged with running Samarra.
Butler said the city had been planning a caucus to pick a mayor when
the order came down from Maj. Gen. Odierno. "He said, basically, stop,"
Butler said.
A timetable for elections in Samarra, Butler said, "is six months at
least, but I'm just guessing."
Butler said he sympathized with Iraqis who are upset over the
cancellation of the elections. "We would like to see some kind of
democratic system, too," he said. But for now, he said, the Iraqis need to
be satisfied with "baby steps."
Like almost all of the Army civil affairs soldiers in Iraq, Butler and
his six-man team do not speak Arabic, and are confronted with a
bewildering environment in Samarra that includes seven major and 14 minor
tribal sheiks -- plus Muslim clergy and a more secular middle class that
is trying to steer clear of rule by either the religious leaders or the
tribes.
The current mayor of Samarra is Shakir Mahmud Mohammad, a retired
general in the Iraqi army, who came into power here in April as U.S.
forces arrived in the city. Mohammad was selected by a council
representing the seven major tribes in and around Samarra, and by most
accounts did an admirable job keeping order in the city in the postwar
weeks.
Mohammad, whose brother was executed by Hussein, now runs the city with
the help of another brother and another former army commander, who serve
as his deputies. Butler described Mohammad as "a very personable guy, with
a decent amount of legitimacy, and he is basically somebody we thought we
can work with."
But many citizens in Samarra, which has a large middle class and a
large drug manufacturing plant, and is unusually prosperous for an Iraqi
town, have complained about Mohammad.
In Hussein's home town of Tikrit, the American in charge is Army Lt.
Col. Steve Russell, whose mission is not to establish democracy in the
region, but to hunt down remnants of the former government and others who
are attacking U.S. troops.
That is understandable, said Nabel Darwish Mohamed, the mayor of nearby
Balad, who is a former colonel in the Iraqi police corps. "But the
American soldiers must understand that security comes also from giving the
people their own leaders, their own powers. That will calm things down, I
think."
Mohammad added, "Fine, we embrace the Americans, we want to see the
security. But we want them to move aside and let us have our own voices.
We have waited a long time for this and we are growing tired of the
waiting, okay?"
Chandrasekaran reported from Baghdad.
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