GET OUT THE VOTE - Did Washington try to manipulate Iraq's election?

[crikkett]

Proud to make this my first thread!

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050725fa_fact
GET OUT THE VOTE
— SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Did Washington try to manipulate Iraq's election?
Issue of 2005-07-25
Posted 2005-07-18


<quote>
In my reporting for this story, one theme that emerged was the Bush Administration's increasing tendency to turn to off-the-books covert actions to accomplish its goals. This allowed the Administration to avoid the kind of stumbling blocks it encountered in the debate about how to handle the elections: bureaucratic infighting, congressional second-guessing, complaints from outsiders.

The methods and the scope of the covert effort have been hard to discern. The current and former military and intelligence officials who spoke to me about the election operation were unable, or unwilling, to give precise details about who did what and where on Election Day. These sources said they heard reports of voter intimidation, ballot stuffing, bribery, and the falsification of returns, but the circumstances, and the extent of direct American involvement, could not be confirmed.
</quote>

And another juicy bit for insight:

<quote>
Under federal law, a finding must be submitted to the House and Senate intelligence committees or, in exceptional cases, only to the intelligence committee chairs and ranking members and the Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress. At least one Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, strongly protested any interference in the Iraqi election. (An account of the dispute was published in Time last October.) The recently retired C.I.A. official recounted angrily, "She threatened to blow the whole thing up in the press by going public. The White House folded to Pelosi." And, for a time, "she brought it to a halt." Pelosi would not confirm or deny this account, except, in an e-mail from her spokesman, to "vigorously" deny that she had threatened to go public. She added, "I have never threatened to make any classified information public. That's against the law."
</quote>

Isn't that last statement ironic? Think it was a reference to Rove?

[cyberpj]

1. Another exceptional article by Hersh.

I'm so grateful he's still in there digging like real journalists are supposed to do.

Unfortunately it appears to be a dying breed.....

[cyberpj]

2. Welcome to DU crikkett - Proud to have you make this your first thread!

:hi: Good job!

[realFedUp]

3. This has gotten no press attention this week....

old news, nevermind. Just another example of the
Bush Crime Family's crimes, but nevermind, old news,
move on to the latest crime.

:eyes:

[Emendator]

4. Of course

they did. Why would anyone be surprised?

Here we have a country that is 60% Shiite. Yet the Shiites end up with 50% in an election where the Sunnis didn't vote... after it took the US something like three weeks to count the votes.