- An Iraqi elder statesman urged the country's interim
government to postpone the general election yesterday, warning that the
seemingly unstoppable wave of killings would only worsen if the poll takes
place as planned in three weeks' time.
-
- Adnan Pachachi, a former Iraqi foreign minister, said
that the polls are bound to be condemned as illegitimate because, thanks
to the violence and a Sunni boycott, many voters will be unable to take
part.
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- "If they are going to be held on 30 January without
the participation of large segments of the Iraqi population and important
areas of Iraq, the elections would be seen as non-inclusive and illegitimate,"
he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme yesterday. Mr Pachachi, who was foreign
minister before Iraq's 1968 Baathist coup, was once seen as a possible
president of post-Saddam Iraq and now heads the Iraqi Independent Democrats
party.
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- President George Bush has acknowledged that four out
of 18 Iraqi provinces are still not safe enough for voting to take place.
Also, the major Sunni factions are refusing to take part, a potentially
fatal challenge to the legitimacy of the poll. Even so, the American-led
coalition is determined to press ahead.
-
- This week the Pentagon is sending a retired senior general
to Iraq apparently in response to the continuing insurgent campaign aimed
at derailing the election. General Gary Luck, a former commander of US
forces in Korea, is due to travel this week on the orders of Donald Rumsfeld,
the Defence Secretary.
-
- According to a spokesman, the posting is to assess progress
in training Iraqis to take over security, key to ensuring that US forces
are eventually free to leave Iraq. He will also take an overview of American
operations against the insurgents.
-
- US military commanders acknowledge that the performance
of the Iraqis is mixed, and far from being able to cut US troop numbers
as it had hoped, the Pentagon now has more personnel in Iraq than ever
more than 150,000.
-
- A senior US army official has said the army is likely
to ask for a permanent increase of 30,000 in its strength.
-
- There is mounting speculation that extra British troops
will be sent to Iraq to bolster election security, with an announcement
expected in the next few days. Battalions of the Royal Scots and the Royal
Highland Fusiliers are waiting in reserve, with the former, currently in
Cyprus, said to be favourites for deployment. The extra battalion of 650
soldiers would take the total of British troops in Iraq to more than 9,000.
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- In one of the few shows of electoral normality, Iraq's
Communist Party held a campaign rally in central Baghdad last week, despite
the recent assassination of two senior members. The party's main tenet
is the separation of state and religion, making it unique in the country's
political landscape. Established in 1934, it was banned under the British-installed
monarchy of the time. Thousands of party members were massacred when the
Baath Party came to power.
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- ©2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=599102
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