Word: iraq
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Thus, democracy Iraqi-style - a little fraud, sectarianism, extralegal government intimidation and the underlying fear of violence. Iraq has by now had more practice at choosing its own leaders in relatively open elections than perhaps any other Middle Eastern country besides Israel and Lebanon. But while the Bush Administration had hoped this would create a democratic ripple effect throughout the region, the results of Iraq's elections have been less than edifying. The politicians who came to power after the country's first parliamentary elections four years ago have been unable to resolve such core issues as sharing oil revenue...
...glimmer of what Iraq might look like without Americans, take a drive east of Baghdad to Diyala province, whose mixed Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish population is the country in microcosm. U.S. soldiers now rarely leave their bases outside Iraq's cities and towns, leaving security on the road to Diyala largely in the hands of the Iraqi security forces. The soldiers and police who man the many checkpoints wear the latest fashion in pattern-disrupting camouflage uniforms and patches that say "Special Forces" or "SWAT." But they still rely on controversial antenna-rod bomb detectors that may in fact...
...Baquba, the provincial capital and center of Iraq's citrus-growing region, is a largely colorless place, except for the winter orange harvest and the hundreds of campaign posters for Sunday's nationwide elections that now line the city's trash-filled streets. Still, at least the sectarian power struggle between Sunnis and Shi'ites that once raged through the city is now mostly confined to the ballot box. (See pictures of Iraq's revival...
...Inside the fortified government headquarters, Diyala Governor Abdul-Nasser al-Mahdwe is relatively optimistic that the elections - the fourth poll since the U.S invasion brought democracy to Iraq - will go smoothly. "The country is getting better at elections," he tells TIME. "In the first, the fraud was about 40%. In the second, let's say 20%. Now it's not going to be that much...
...governor worries that as the U.S. begins to withdraw its soldiers from Iraq later in the year, Iraqis could revert to settling their political disputes in the streets. "The problem is the police," he says. "The police are all local, so the local parties can manipulate them." For now, though, al-Mahdwe, who belongs to a Sunni party that opposes Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led governing coalition, is more worried about an élite counterterrorism unit run by Maliki's office, which he accuses of arresting scores of opposition politicians and government critics in Diyala...