"Elections" in Iraq

Roughly half of eligible Americans voted for President on 2 November 2004 yet nearly 80% of eligible Iraqis may have voted last week in the first such event in the past 50 years. What are we to make of this?

This article lays out some very interesting information about various people involved in the Iraqi elections.

According to the Washington Post(bold added for emphasis):

• Funded by U.S. taxpayers, the Baghdad office of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs stands at the ambitious heart of the American effort to make Iraq a model democracy in the Arab world. In the 13 months it has operated in the country, the institute has tutored political aspirants from all of Iraq's major parties, trained about 10,000 domestic election observers and nurtured thousands of ordinary citizens seeking to build the institutions that form the backbone of free societies.
  
  The work[ is in many ways entirely routine for the institute -- as it is for the two other Washington-based organizations that are here advising on the architecture of democracy: the International Republican Institute (IRI), which declined requests for an interview, and the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), which along with the United Nations is providing crucial technical assistance to Iraq's electoral commission.

Take a look at the IRI Board of Directors. And the Board of Directors of NDI. And that of IFES. All three contain some extremely powerful people from many layers of American politics and business.

According to the 2003 biennial Report of IFES for the year ending 30 September 2003, the US gov't contributed just under $27 million, with $5.3 million being paid in salaries.

According to the NDI site:

• The Democratic Century Fund is supported annually by corporations, foundations, labor unions, individuals and alumni dedicated to the growth of democracy worldwide. These private contributions supplement funding provided to NDI by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), United Nations Development Programme, and the World Bank, as well as the governments of the US (U.S. Agency for International Development), Canada (Canadian International Development Agency), Ireland (Irish Aid), Japan, Netherlands, United Kingdom and other governments.

From their 2003 Annual report:

• IRI receives funding from corporations, foundations and individuals dedicated to advancing democracy worldwide. These private contributions supplement funding provided to IRI by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and U.S. Department of State.