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Carter Dementia Resurgent
Nobel Peace Prize winner and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has expressed strong misgivings about Iraqi elections next month and said there was not enough security in the country for a free and safe vote.
| "Nope. Nope. Can't do it. Put Sammy back in, then start over. And get it right this time!" |
Carter, whose nonpartisan Carter Centre has monitored more than 50 elections around the world, told Reuters on Wednesday he would not be involved in observing the January 30 vote and was not optimistic about the situation in Iraq. "I think the whole Iraqi situation has been a debacle, a very costly one.
| "Not as much of a debacle as having our embassy in Teheran occupied, and the staff taken hostage, but still a debacle..." |
I don't see how all the rudimentary requirements for a free and safe election can be achieved in another month. How can anyone campaign? How can anyone go and vote without fear?," he said in an interview.
| "Best to just forget the whole idea. Maybe you can find a holy man to rule the country for a few years, until the natives are ready?" |
"They might contrive some substitute for an orthodox election by having the vote take place over several weeks or in certain little spots scattered about Iraq and not in the troubled areas. But there is not enough security there in my opinion to have a legitimate election. I hope I am wrong and that they have some success," he added. ...
| I take a certain amount of comfort in the fact that Jimmy's usually wrong. |
Posted by: .com 2004-12-16 |
