September 24, 2004
State Dept. Says Iraq Elections Must Be Held in All Regions
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 — The second-ranking official at the State Department said today, in an apparent contradiction of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, that the elections scheduled for Iraq in January must be "open to all citizens."
"We're going to have an election that is free and open," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said at a House committee hearing, "and that has to be open to all citizens."
When he was asked after the session if he knew of any plans to not hold elections in particularly violent sections of Iraq, Mr. Armitage said: "I know of no changes or no plans. We're pushing ahead fully, supporting the Iraqi people and the United Nations." He went on to reiterate that those plans called for "nationwide elections for a 275-person national assembly before the end of January."
Mr. Armitage's testimony before the House Appropriations Committee's panel on foreign operations, and his comments afterward, seemed to put him at odds, at least for the moment, with Secretary Rumsfeld, who theorized before another Capitol Hill hearing on Thursday that elections might be held in only "three-quarters or four-fifths of the country" because some regions are not yet secure enough.
"So be it," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Nothing's perfect in life."
Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, seemed to foreshadow Mr. Rumsfeld's comments when he told a joint meeting of Congress earlier on Thursday, in an address that was generally upbeat, that the elections "may not be perfect."
Mr. Armitage, in his comments after today's hearing by the House Appropriations panel, seemed to try to minimize any impression of a disagreement or momentary disconnect within the administration.
Alluding to Mr. Allawi's White House appearance with President Bush as well as to the address to Congress, Mr. Armitage said that both Mr. Bush and the Iraqi leader "were crystal clear in saying that the elections were going to be held, and they'll be free and fair, and they wouldn't be perfect," adding, "We absolutely want to hold them in all parts of the country."
Any widespread impression of confusion in the administration, especially if it persists, could be damaging, since Mr. Bush's Democratic rival, Senator John Kerry, has stepped up his criticism of the administration's entire approach to Iraq.
Mr. Kerry has essentially been saying that the American-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein was a misguided, reckless, go-it-alone adventure, and that Mr. Bush has no real plan for getting the United States out of Iraq. He has said, too, that the war against Saddam Hussein detracted from the more important mission of pursuing Osama bin Laden.
To make things even more uncomfortable for the White House, Mr. Armitage had to listen to sharp criticism of the administration today as he appeared before the appropriations panel to request that $3.5 billion originally designated for reconstruction in Iraq be diverted for security purposes — an acknowledgment that violence had persisted longer than many people had expected.
Mr. Armitage conceded as much today. "We found that the security situation or the insurgents more virulent than we had expected," he testified, "and we need to more rapidly stand up security in order then to have enough stability to have reconstruction projects really get traction."
At another point, he acknowledged that administration leaders did not fully understand the complexities of Iraqi society before the campaign. "We have to acknowledge that there were several things that we didn't foresee," he said. "One was a full understanding of the tribal nature, the real importance of tribes and how to bring tribal elders into it." He added, "I don't think that I got that right, personally."
Echoing the president's own admission last month that his administration had made a "miscalculation" on what the United States would face in post-invasion Iraq, Mr. Armitage, a Navy combat veteran of the Vietnam War, cited a military axiom: "No plan survives first contact with the enemy, and our plan didn't either."
Several panel members of both parties expressed their liking and respect for Mr. Armitage even as they criticized the administration's approach to Iraq. While it appeared from the lawmakers' comments that the funds diversion would be approved, the chairman of the foreign-operations panel, Representative Jim Kolbe, said its members would not hesitate "to call this or any other administration to account for failure to implement a reconstruction program that offers the only hope for long-term stability in Iraq."
Mr. Kolbe, a Republican from Arizona, sharply criticized the administration. "In invading Iraq, the U.S., along with its allies, chose to take a calculated risk in favor of U.S. national security interests," he said. "While the decision remains justified in my mind, I think it is fair to say that the administration has made some fundamental mistakes in the planning and execution of the postwar strategy."
Representative Nita Lowey of New York, the ranking Democrat on the panel, called the situation in Iraq "the result of a colossal and tragic miscalculation."
Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, the ranking Democrat on the overall Appropriations Committee, was even harsher. Mr. Obey, who has been in the House since 1969, said he bitterly recalled the "arrogance" of the senior officials in Lyndon B. Johnson's White House.
"They were as arrogant as they were wrong," he said. Now, Mr. Obey said, "I see that same kind of intellectual arrogance on the part of a number of people in the administration, especially the White House and the Pentagon civilian leadership."