Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports today in the New Yorker that the Bush administration authorised covert action to rig last January’s Iraqi elections.
Hersh discovers that the Americans were keen to ensure that a pro-American government continued in Iraq and individuals or groups not associated with the Shias or Iran would be assisted. The reality, of course, is far different with some elements of the current Iraqi government very close to the Iranian mullahs.
Hersh quotes a UN official: “The American embassy’s aim was to make sure that [Iyad] Allawi remained as prime minister, and they tried to do it through manipulation of the system…[But] the Shias rigged the election in the south as much as ballots were rigged for Allawi.”