Iraqi Election Info

[Owlet]

Amrfican Progress has set up "The Iraqi Election Checklist"
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=197311
Note than none of the items are checked off, and the election is scheduled to take place in 4 months.

Here's a story on what happens next - maybe.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002046692_iraqpolicy26.html

A key test of this strategy will come as the election season formally
opens. On Oct. 15, Iraq will begin mailing out registration forms;
eligible voters can turn them in at centers where Iraqis pick up
monthly food packages from Nov. 1 until mid-December, U.S. and Iraqi
officials say. Iraqi and U.S. officials are concerned that insurgents
will target registration centers in the same way they've attacked
police stations.

The election, to be held by Jan. 31, will create a national assembly,
which will in turn pick a new government to replace Allawi's interim
government appointed by U.S. and U.N. envoys. The assembly will also
oversee writing a new national constitution.

In effect, U.S. and Iraqi officials say, a race is under way to see
whether Iraqi forces can stabilize volatile areas after U.S. troops
clean out insurgents — and whether Iraqis will embrace the
U.S.-designed transition plan — both in just four months.

The danger, warn Iraq experts, is counting on Iraqi security forces.
When a similar approach was tried last spring, those forces broke under the strain, with some even turning on U.S. troops.

"I've got real doubts about these guys," said retired Army Col. W.
Patrick Lang, former head of Middle Eastern Affairs for the Defense
Intelligence Agency. "I think the whole election thing is too soon," he said. "They're rushing it — they don't have enough trained troops.