Iraqis voted because they want U.S. troops out

[illflem]

LINDA MCQUAIG

The fact that millions of Iraqis turned out to vote has led many here to conclude that George W. Bush was right to invade Iraq. What an odd conclusion.

It is indeed stunning and inspiring that so many Iraqis risked death to participate in the elections. This tells us that they're desperate for freedom and self-government. But was that ever in doubt?

To listen to the giddy media commentary here, one could easily conclude that Iraqis voted to show their support for Bush and the U.S. army. Yet, the one theme common to all parties in the election was the need to end the U.S. occupation. "Many of the voters came out to cast their ballots in the belief that it was the only way to regain enough sovereignty to get American troops back out of their country," noted Juan Cole, a professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Michigan.

If there's a "hero" of the emerging Iraqi electoral process, it isn't Bush but rather Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who doggedly pushed for elections right from the start, seeing them as a vehicle for winning clout for his long-oppressed Shiite majority.

Bush, as it turns out, resisted elections, preferring Iraq be run by a U.S. pro-consul while a few hand-picked exiles drew up a new constitution. "If it had been up to Bush, Iraq would have been a soft dictatorship," according to Cole.

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