While pretending conditions in Iraq are improving, the Bush administration has emphasized the goal of democratic elections in Iraq in January. Giving Iraqis a direct say in choosing their own leaders, the argument goes, will help bring a semblance of stability to a country that is falling apart at the seams.
But “democratic elections,” it turns out, is open to interpretation. Not only is the administration open to leaving large areas of Iraq out of the process because they’re too dangerous, the White House has secretly considered a plan to “influence” the elections’ outcome for candidates who are sympathetic to the United States.
President Bush and interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi insisted last week that Iraq would go ahead with elections scheduled for January, despite continuing violence. But U.S. officials tell TIME that the Bush team ran into trouble with another plan involving those elections — a secret “finding” written several months ago proposing a covert CIA operation to aid candidates favored by Washington.
A source says the idea was to help such candidates — whose opponents might be receiving covert backing from other countries, like Iran — but not necessarily to go so far as to rig the elections. But lawmakers from both parties raised questions about the idea when it was sent to Capitol Hill. In particular, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi “came unglued” when she learned about what a source described as a plan for “the CIA to put an operation in place to affect the outcome of the elections.”
So, it’s not that we’d literally falsify the results of a foreign election in a country we occupy; we’d only use the CIA to “affect the outcome.” The Bush White House may have its tragic shortcomings, but they’re really good with euphemisms.
NBC News had some solid follow-up on this report on Monday.
In the past, the CIA has been criticized for trying to influence elections in Chile, Nicaragua, Italy and Portugal by financing newspapers and radio stations, running smear campaigns, printing election posters, sometimes at CIA headquarters. The plan for Iraq’s election was so secret, it would have to be approved by the president. The White House denies he was involved.
And since the Bush White House has built up such a strong record of credibility, particularly when it comes to activities in Iraq, there’s certainly no reason to question their word now, right?
In addition to denying involvement with this plan, the White House also insists the idea to influence the elections’ outcome has been rejected.
The administration plans to spend more than $150 million on Iraq’s election, it claims, on public programs like voter registration, promising that the CIA plan is dead.
I don’t mean to be such a cynic, but White House “promises” are pretty meaningless at this point.