** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
What They're Not Telling You About the "Election"
February 01, 2005
The day of blood and elections has passed, and the blaring trumpets of
corporate media hailing it as a successful show of “democracy” have
subsided to a dull roar.
After a day which left 50 people dead in Iraq, both civilians and
soldiers, the death toll was hailed as a figure that was “lower than
expected.” Thus…acceptable, by Bush Administration/corporate media
standards. After all, only of them was an American, the rest were Iraqis
civilians and British soldiers.
The gamble of using the polling day in Iraq to justify the ongoing
failed occupation of Iraq has apparently paid off, if you watch only
mainstream media.
“Higher than expected turnout,” US mainstream television media blared,
some citing a figure of 72%, others 60%.
What they didn’t tell you was that this figure was provided by Farid
Ayar, the spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq
(IECI) before the polls had even closed.
When asked about the accuracy of the estimate of voter turnout during a
press conference, Ayar backtracked on his earlier figure, saying that a
closer estimate was lower than his initial estimate and would be more
like 60% of registered voters.
The IECI spokesman said his previous figure of 72% was “only guessing”
and “was just an estimate,” which was based on “very rough, word-of
mouth estimates gathered informally from the field. It will take some
time for the IECI to issue accurate figures on turnout.”
Referencing both figures, Ayar then added, “Percentages and numbers come
only after counting and will be announced when it's over ... It's too
soon to say that those were the official numbers.”
But this isn’t the most important misrepresentation the mainstream media
committed.
What they also didn’t tell you was that of those who voted, whether they
be 35% or even 60% of registered voters, were not voting in support of
an ongoing US occupation of their country.
In fact, they were voting for precisely the opposite reason. Every Iraqi
I have spoken with who voted explained that they believe the National
Assembly which will be formed soon will signal an end to the occupation.
And they expect the call for a withdrawing of foreign forces in their
country to come sooner rather than later.
This causes one to view the footage of cheering, jubilant Iraqis in a
different light now, doesn’t it?
But then, most folks in the US watching CNN, FOX, or any of the major
networks won’t see it that way. Instead, they will hear what Mr. Bush
said, “The world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the
Middle East,” and take it as fact because most of the major media
outlets aren’t scratching beneath film clips of joyous Iraqi voters over
here in the land of daily chaos and violence, no jobs, no electricity,
little running water and no gasoline (for the Iraqis anyhow).
And Bush is portrayed by the media as the bringer of democracy to Iraq
by the simple fact that this so-called election took place, botched as
it may have been. Appearances suggest that the majority Shia in Iraq now
finally get their proportional representation in a “government.” Looks
good on paper.
But as you continue reading, the seemingly altruistic reasons for this
election as portrayed by the Bush Administration and trumpeted by most
mainstream media are anything but.
And Iraqis who voted are hearing other trumpets that are blaring an end
to the occupation.
Now the question remains, what happens when the National Assembly is
formed and over 100,000 US soldiers remain on the ground in Iraq with
the Bush Administration continuing in its refusal to provide a timetable
for their removal?
What happens when Iraqis see that while there are already four permanent
US military bases in their country, rather than beginning to disassemble
them, more bases are being constructed, as they are, by Cheney’s old
company Halliburton, right now?
Antonia Juhasz, a /Foreign Policy in Focus/ scholar, authored a piece
just before the “election” that sheds light on a topic that has lost
attention amidst the recent fanfare concerning the polls in Iraq.
Oil.
I think it’s worth including much of her story here, as it fits
well
with today’s topic of things most folks aren’t being told by the
bringers of democracy to the heart of the Middle East.
/On Dec. 22, 2004, Iraqi Finance Minister Abdel Mahdi told a handful of
reporters and industry insiders at the National Press Club in
Washington, D.C. that Iraq wants to issue a new oil law that would open
Iraq's national oil company to private foreign investment. As Mahdi
explained: "So I think this is very promising to the American investors
and to American enterprise, certainly to oil companies."
In other words, Mahdi is proposing to privatize Iraq's oil and put it
into American corporate hands.
According to the finance minister, foreigners would gain access both to
"downstream" and "maybe even upstream" oil investment. This means
foreigners can sell Iraqi oil and own it under the ground — the very
thing for which many argue the U.S. went to war in the first place.
As Vice President Dick Cheney's Defense Policy Guidance report explained
back in 1992, "Our overall objective is to remain the predominant
outside power in the [Middle East] region and preserve U.S. and Western
access to the region's oil."
While few in the American media other than Emad Mckay of Inter Press
Service reported on — or even attended — Mahdi’s press conference, the
announcement was made with U.S. Undersecretary of State Alan Larson at
Mahdi's side. It was intended to send a message — but to whom?
It turns out that Abdel Mahdi is running in the Jan. 30 elections on the
ticket of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIR), the
leading Shiite political party. While announcing the selling-off of the
resource which provides 95 percent of all Iraqi revenue may not garner
Mahdi many Iraqi votes, but it will unquestionably win him tremendous
support from the U.S. government and U.S. corporations.
Mahdi's SCIR is far and away the front-runner in the upcoming elections,
particularly as it becomes increasingly less possible for Sunnis to vote
because the regions where they live are spiraling into deadly chaos. If
Bush were to suggest to Iraq’s Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that
elections should be called off, Mahdi and the SCIR's ultimate chances of
victory will likely decline./
I’ll add that the list of political parties Mahdi’s SCIR belongs to, The
United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), includes the Iraqi National Council, which
is led by an old friend of the Bush Administration who provided the
faulty information they needed to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq,
none other than Ahmed Chalabi.
It should also be noted that interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi also fed
the Bush Administration cooked information used to justify the invasion,
but he heads a different Shia list which will most likely be getting
nearly as many votes as the UIA list.
And The UIA has the blessing of Iranian born revered Shiite cleric,
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Sistani issued a fatwa which instructed
his huge number of followers to vote in the election, or they would risk
going to hell.
/Thus, one might argue that the Bush administration has made a deal with
the SCIR: Iraq's oil for guaranteed political power. The Americans are
able to put forward such a bargain because Bush still holds the strings
in Iraq.
Regardless of what happens in the elections, for at least the next year
during which the newly elected National Assembly writes a constitution
and Iraqis vote for a new government, the Bush administration is going
to control the largest pot of money available in Iraq (the $24 billion
in U.S. taxpayer money allocated for the reconstruction), the largest
military and the rules governing Iraq's economy. Both the money and the
rules will, in turn, be overseen by U.S.-appointed auditors and
inspector generals who sit in every Iraqi ministry with five-year terms
and sweeping authority over contracts and regulations. However, the one
thing which the administration has not been unable to confer upon itself
is guaranteed access to Iraqi oil — that is, until now.
And there is so much more they are not telling you. Just like the Iraqis
who voted, believing they did so to bring an end to the occupation of
their country.
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