Bush’s Defense Secretary, yesterday:
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has raised the possibility that some areas of Iraq might be excluded from elections scheduled for January if security could not be guaranteed.
“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 at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
“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.
Bush’s State Department, today:
“We’re going to have an election that is free and open and that has to be open to all citizens. It’s got to be our best effort to get it into troubled areas as well,” Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told a House committee Friday, after being asked about Rumsfeld’s words.
Armitage told reporters after the hearing that: “We absolutely want to hold them in all parts of Iraq.” Asked if partial elections were under consideration, he said: “No. Not now. Not that I know of.”
That ought to clear things up.