In this case the coalition are saying something like "we don’t like the Welsh so we won’t let them vote"

There have been other places in the World where elections have taken place amid intimidation and the UN observers have said the vote was fair.

I really do think that this is a setup by the coalition to exclude certain groups from the government.

This really winds me up; those of us who were against the war KNEW those words were going to fall out of his mouth, and he hasn’t disappointed yet, has he?! Justification after the event, weasel words and lies. Exactly the same kind of tactics they use when they pull the old patriotism card - "if you don’t support our troops you’re unpatriotic blah blah". Don’t they just make you sick, these people - they lied in advance about the reasons for war, they lie on a day to day basis telling us that the situation is under control, they lie when they say they weren’t warned beforehand about the consequences, and after all that they try to pull this guilt trip by saying, look it’s a mess, but now we’ve ALL got to band together to clean it up. No thanks, Tony - I didn’t support the war, and there’s is no way I would ever even think about lifting a finger to help sort out the aftermath. Bliar and Brush don’t care about the ordinary Iraqi in the street; why should I? I care about why my taxes are being used to fund wars of aggression, while basic services in this country are in such a shambles.

Anyway, anyone with any sense "understands the nature of the conflict and what is at stake". American oil interests, pure and simple.

Personally though I think this situation suits the Americans down to the ground because it gives them pretty much carte blanche to do whatever they want; pick and choose the candidates, mess about with the results, whatever they need to do to get their man in place.

The election of members for, say, 90% of constituencies can take place in January, and for the troubled areas at a later date. That means that some areas will not be represented, as was the case when Irish MPs refused to appear in the British Parliament.

It is not ideal, but it is better than having a non-elected government. It would give the local people in those areas an added incentive to expel the insurgents.

The main purpose of this first elected parliament is to agree a constitution rather than to do routine government.

I beg to differ - if you exclude parts of Iraq from the vote then the result cannot be called Democracy - I thought politicians understood basic things like enfranchisement.

If this was always the ‘cop out’ position of the coalition then why didn’t they hold elections in June or July?

On a lighter note - maybe Mr Bush wants to redefine ‘democracy’ before November so that he can exclude the Florida vote.

How many more lives would be lost if those two monsters were released?

It is useless to negotiate with psychopaths. There is no good route out of this situation, unless the kidnappers can be located and attacked.