A Bush triumph?

The Bush administration's latest spin, portraying Iraq's elections as "a resounding success", is not likely to stand for long, Khaled Dawoud reports from Washington

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Iraq elections 2005

Following Sunday's elections the front pages of national papers in the US were plastered with photos of Iraqis in long queues, or else raising thumbs marked with purple ink to indicate that they had already cast their ballot. The mainstream media gave blanket coverage to the polls. As soon as an unnamed member of the Iraqi Elections Commission announced, before the polls closed, that turnout was over 72 per cent the television networks went into overdrive, treating the figure as breaking news. It was later retracted by senior officials from the same commission who said they had not even started tallying the final count.

The anchors of the main news programmes grilled Arab and European diplomats from countries that had opposed the war, asking them -- rhetorically, one suspects -- whether the vote had vindicated Bush's decision to remove Saddam Hussein. And as part and parcel of the jubilant coverage interviews were conducted with "average" Americans who reiterated endlessly that what was happening was a "great thing".

"I love President Bush. Thank you President Bush for liberating us," said one Iraqi, wrapped in an American flag.

The tone of the coverage was triumphal, with no room for any suggestions that, as far as most Iraqis were concerned, the day after the polls would be little different from the day before. Few in the Bush administration wanted to hear about the problems that lie ahead. Wary of increasing criticism of his Iraq policy -- days earlier Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy had called the presence of US troops part of the problem rather than the solution, and demanded a timetable for their withdrawal -- President Bush had sounded a note of caution ahead of the vote, insisting that simply holding elections was in itself a success.

Initially the White House had designated Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to do the rounds of the studios. Yet as elections day progressed, with far less violence than any one had anticipated, and a higher turnout than many expected, ("only" 36 were killed), Bush's minders saw an opportunity to capitalise on the positive coverage. Soon after the polls closed the president emerged to make a statement. "The Iraqi people themselves made this election a resounding success," Bush said in a four-minute statement read out in front of reporters. He conceded that "terrorists and insurgents will continue to wage their war against democracy" but promised to "support the Iraqi people in their fight against them". He then departed without taking any questions.

However triumphalist the coverage of the elections it could not quite paper over the fact that the current US administration has consistently failed to answer the questions posed by the growing number of critics -- both Democrats and Republicans -- of its Iraq policy. Those opposed to the administration's position on Iraq point to the growing costs of the occupation, both in terms of money and lives.

Former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, while conceding that the elections were indeed "significant" voiced the concerns of many when he warned against "overhyping" their effects. The world, and the United States, were now less safe, he said, than they were before the invasion turned Iraq into a "magnet for terrorists" from all over the world. The real test for the Bush administration, he added, comes after the elections.

White House sources insisted Bush was sincere in his attempts to engineer a rapprochement with Europe in order to bring stability to Iraq. On Sunday and Monday he telephoned European leaders, including the president of France and the chancellor of Germany, in a fence-mending exercise. Bush also reiterated that Washington remained committed to rebuilding Iraq's security forces so that responsibility for stability could be handed over to a new Iraqi government.

Meanwhile Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), issued a report this week casting doubt over the number of Iraqi troops officials say have been trained under the US occupation. He estimated the total number of effective forces as between 7,000 to 11,000 rather than the 127,000 reported by the US government. "Only a few battalion elements are capable of operating against insurgents without US support," he reported.

In interviews and statements made by Bush and his secretary of state, Rice, over the past week they stuck to their position of refusing to set a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, repeating the vague formula that they would be withdrawn "when their mission is done".

Senior Pentagon officials have said recently that they estimate that around 120,000 troops -- i.e. the current strength of US soldiers -- will be needed in Iraq at least until the beginning of 2007.

President Bush was equally vague on whether his administration is seeking to establish a permanent military presence in Iraq. He said in a television interview last week that any decision on the matter is "going to be up to the Iraqi government, a government elected by the people that will be making decisions as to how best to secure their country". As Bush himself has declared that the war against terror, and his avowed goal of establishing democracy in the Middle East, could take "generations" few if any analysts expect the US to pull all its troops out of Iraq.

In statements on Sunday Rice said Washington was committed to seeking agreement from Iraq's Shia and Kurds that the Sunni minority would not be excluded from the process of drafting the new constitution or from any future government.

"I have heard innumerable comments from Shia and Kurdish leaders that they intend to be one Iraq... The Sunnis, Shia, Kurds and other minorities, I think, will find a common future," she said.