Downing Street Says

Asked about comments by the Secretary General of the UN, the PMOS made reference to the Attorney General’s statement on July 14, where he said that “my view is that military action taken in Iraq was lawful. That was my independent view at the time and it is still my view. The Government has acted in accordance with my advice at all times.” Prime Minister Allawi had said earlier in the week that the violence in Iraq had obviously been disturbing and it was obvious that if that was the only picture of Iraq as a whole, people would question whether things can go forward. Prime Minister Allawi said Iraq was not dominated by that violence and therefore what they were working for, against a tight time deadline, was to have elections in January and that they were determined to do so. What the terrorists wanted was to stop democracy in its tracks in Iraq. All evidence from Iraq showed there was a desire, a real hunger, for Iraqis, without intimidation, to choose their own representatives.

The PMOS drew people’s attention to the fact that people had said elections would not be possible in Afghanistan and the UN had set a target of 5 million registered voters, and at the last count there were over 10 million. Clearly there were still problems in both Afghanistan and Iraq but that shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of democratic elections.

1 Comment »

what an utter nonsense. "Clearly there were still problems in both Afghanistan and Iraq but that shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of democratic elections".

that shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way?!? all sides are running around blowing each other up and killing indiscriminately; how on earth can any kind of democracy function with that lot going on?!

we know there are 2 sides to the story in iraq, and i’m sure it’s not all bad. but a lot of it is. services disrupted by the invasion over a year ago are still not repaired, and only a fraction of the rebuilding has been done. how anyone can claim that democracy is slowly flourishing in either country is beyond me, and the idea that democratic elections will take place in the current climate is "palpably absurd", to use tonys own words.

and even if there were no violence in iraq, elections still would not be democratic – the americans will try to field their own candidates and keep anyone they don’t like out of the picture. what a mess.
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 17 Sep 2004 on 11:01 am | Link

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» Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Iraq

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