No international monitors planned for Iraq polls

PAGE TOOLS
	send-to-friend print-friendly version add to my morning paper respond to editors / author increase type size decrease type size
Sign up to receive NewStandard headlines and extras by e-mail weekday mornings! Your privacy is strictly respected.

Dec 24, 2004 - After a two-day meeting in Canada, representatives of seven nations that came together to assess the prospects for monitoring the Iraqi elections slated for January 30, 2005, concluded the security situationprecludes the placement of observers on the ground.

It is standard practice for international organizations to place "neutral" observers at polling places throughout fledgling democracies, ostensibly to provide a degree of accountability, discourage fraud and disenfranchisement, and to certify or question the legitimacy of a vote. But few countries have held their initial elections in the midst of open warfare with most of the national territory deemed too dangerous even for international officials to operate.

Previous/Related NewStandard Items Controversial U.S. Grops Operate Behind Scenes on Iraq Vote

For its part, the US "will have as low a profile as possible during the election," according to an unnamed"senior State Department official" quoted in theNew York Times

With international observers absent, the vote monitoring will be up to Iraqis themselves. The United Nations and the US-based non-governmental organization National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) say they are involved in training between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqis to monitor the casting of ballots in some 7,000 polling places across the country.

NDI, which is closely tied to the controversial National Endowment for Democracy and is considered the international wing of the Democratic Party, receives funding for its Iraq operations from the US Agency for International Development, the explicit mission of which is to further US interests in foreign countries.