Zahra,

CIA have rushed Chalabi with billions and he got all Da’awa and others under his Tean,so they financed by CIA, it’s need kid barin no prove needed and understand what’s went with all these guyes, We must be clear if US have see Malki Ja’afri a threat to them and against their occupation they will took them long time not putting in power , I don’t know what credentials they had promoting them to PM PM, this is the way suite US and also those Iranian-Proxy, same as Khominie when every Friday slogon Death to US and Israeli for 25 years but he did not mind to get support from US and Israeil.

Any way I agree with you that any interferance should be a concerns to all iraqes but what we see uis the iraqi officail talking about all interfrences but not Irains, also Iran interference is far from presenting avidness here annd links to approve for those who on long sleep like Hidier.

Anyway I think I went far in this is the last comment from in this matter as it’s very clear not because I would like to but its on the ground in Najaf where hidier enjoying trading with Iran currency and the spoken language is Persian.

Finally let be clear I had nothing against Irain’s people, I am not HATING Iranians or Iran, I hate the mullah who have dreven Iran and their polices in Iraq

This seems to confirm my suspicion – that they first inflate their alleged victory and then they will say that the elections were rigged against them if their predictions don’t prove true!

i am in najaf, come visit me anytime,

Along with the 6000plus candidates it shows the extraordinary level of interest in the Iraqi democratic process.

We have to be vigilant about Iranian interference, but I would also like the same vigilance when it comes to Saudi, syrian, jordanian and turkish interference too. Iran is not the only state that is using iraq as a pawn in its power struggle against the US and Saudi Arabia.

Well….well one very basic and “Stupid” questions who came and put in power initially from first day worked with Americans against the wishes of most Iraqis Haider?

SCIRI, Jaffary, Mliki and all proxy-iraians Mullahs, or you have different list of names.

While I talking about Iran, my concerns like most Iraqi as Iran did and doing more damage to Iraq and its socity than others but not more than US and Israel what they have done and doing. These are facts any Iraqi will talk about.

Btw, Hider we love to see where you setting right now and commenting please? inside Iraq or not?

Thank you for the clarification – I agree with you, the process needs to be clarified and made more transparent.

I am just sad that Lami and Chalabi have used this to their advantage, while giving the pro-Baath camp a lot of material for their propaganda. Only a fair and transparent procedure will ensure that criminals are kept out of public office, while not making martyrs out of them.

The AJ legislation of Jan 2008 may or may not be the right way of handling de-Baathification. Personally I would recommend a process that focused on individual crimes rather than mass exclusions based on blanket assumptions of guilt derived from what kind of job a person had pre-2003. Anyway, that decision is for Iraqis to make, all I am suggesting is that exclusions of candidates should be on the basis of a judicial process referring to a consistent and complete legal framework instead of the politicised and unpredictable developments we have seen lately.

I personally don’t admire a campaign that promises to uproot the fundamental problems in Iraq by day, and works with the people creating those problems by night. I find it completely lacking in integrity. Either you say everyone has something to contribute to the process so lets all work together, or you set yourself aside as someone with a genuine vision for change. You can’t drag INA’s name in the mud and then plan to use them to get the PM role.

Reider, I have a separate question for you. I couldn’t make out from your analysis whether you are opposed to debaathification in principle, or just the way it has been politicised and abused. If it’s the latter, then I completely and wholeheartedly agree with you.

However, if you oppose debaathification in principle, then I find that very worrying. I think Baathist propaganda has been extremely successful in linking all of iraq’s woes to debaathification, as if the removal of senior baathists is the key to all of iraq’s problems, and their return will mark the key solution. I think anyone who believes that line of argument did not witness the level of oppression that was practiced by baathists against the Iraqi people. I’m not talking about people who were forced to join the party, but those whose amibition and criminality drove them to kill and maim hundreds of thousands of innocent iraqis so they can rise up the ranks of the party. I think debaathification is central to Iraq’s democracy surviving and flourishing because Baathists corrupt the institutions that they infiltrate – military coups and assasinations are their traditional method of gaining power – who are they supposed to be trusted to run a democracy? You expressed woe once at the removal of professors – again I agree that the process MUST be a fair and transparent one, but the removal of a professor in principle is not shocking to someone who knows how iraqi universities were hotbeds of state terrorism, and many professors only gained their academic title through reporting politically active students and resulting in their arrest and murder.

Which brings me to my last point, the biggest problem with the Accountability board’s in my opinion is that it made martyrs out of people like Saleh Al-Mutlak and Zafir Al-Ani, who have both recently praised the Baath party and its leadership (Al-Ani even praised the quelling of the uprising and the Anfal campaign). Those people should have been banned in a completely open and transparent matter because they should not be trusted to hold public office in Iraq, given their allegiance to the Baath party and their refusal to even distance themselves from its crimes.

Reidar, I think Allawi is doing politics on multi-level the Iranian way, which is more likely to succeed. It is also important to counter leverage Iranian-Kurdish alliances. I find Zahra’s estimation of 500,000 observers incredible and I admire rather than criticize Allawi’s latest politics.