In Iraq, Bush Pushed For Deadline Democracy
Timeline Yields New Elected Order, Not Peace
By Peter Baker and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 11, 2005; Page A01
Whenever he was asked in public last winter about the prospect of delaying Iraq's first election since the fall of Saddam Hussein, President Bush flatly dismissed it. His administration, he insisted, was "very firm" on going forward.
But inside the White House, Bush's team was anything but firm. A powerful debate was raging, officials now acknowledge, among the president's top advisers over postponing the Jan. 30 interim election in hopes of first tamping down the flaring insurgency and bringing disaffected factions to the table.
"There was a good debate in front of the president," recalled national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley. "It was a close question and if it had gone to consensus, I don't know how it would have come out."
Ultimately, it did not go to a consensus decision but to Bush, who opted to stick with the election, a decision with distinct costs and benefits as the United States labored to build a democratic government in Iraq from the ground up. When U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer transferred sovereignty to Iraqi authorities in June 2004, he left behind a script with hard-and-fast deadlines for drafting a constitution and forming a government, a script that culminates Thursday with another election for a permanent parliament.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/10/AR2005121001379.html