Important Iraqi vote

As part of the process of holding elections (due in January 
2005), an Iraqi National Council comprising 100 Iraqis from 
various tribal, ethnic, religious and political groups was setup 
in August to oversee the elections and help make preparations for 
them.

Earlier this month this National Council held an election for the 
top positions in this body.

The delegate from the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution 
in Iraq came in first with 56 votes. This is a Shiite group that 
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld lambasted as a tool of Iran 
during the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Another Iraqi even less attractive to Washington, the Secretary 
General of the Iraqi Communist Party, Hamid Majid Moussa, came in 
second with 55 votes.

The delegate from the Iraqi National Accord — the group once 
backed by the CIA and whose leader, Iyad Allawi, was recently 
warmly greeted in Washington by President Bush, came in third 
with 53 votes.

The delegate from the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni group, 
sympathetic to the Ba'athist-based, anti-American resistance 
operating both west and north of Baghdad — came in fourth with 
48 votes.

* * *

Freelance journalist Frank Smyth who posted this information 
(http://www.franksmyth.com) writing for Foreign Policy in Focus 
comments that, "By any count, getting only one ally elected 
out of four seats on this potentially all-important electoral 
oversight body does not bode well for the Bush administration".