Trouble in Iraq with the recent vote: Anbar Sheiks suspect fraud

[TayTay]

As Anbar Counts Votes, Sheiks Voice Defiance
Tribal Leaders Threaten Reprisals If They Lose

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 5, 2009

RAMADI, Iraq, Feb. 4 -- In a palatial house replete with guns, flags and other manifestations of tribal power, America's key ally in once-volatile Anbar province explained what he would do if the counting of votes in Saturday's election failed to show his party as the victor.

"We will form the government of Anbar anyway," vowed Ahmed Abu Risha, his voice dipping to a quiet growl. The tribesmen seated in his visiting room, where photos of U.S. generals and Sunni monarchs adorn the walls, nodded in approval. "An honest dictatorship is better than a democracy won through fraud," Abu Risha said.

Here, in the cradle of the Sunni insurgency, tribal leaders nurtured and empowered by the United States appear ready to take control the old-fashioned way -- with guns and money -- if their political ambitions are frustrated.

Abu Risha and other leaders of the Awakening, the U.S.-backed Sunni sheiks who rose up to quell the insurgency, charge that Sunni politicians of the Iraqi Islamic Party have committed electoral fraud, which party officials deny. The allegations, coupled with threats to use arms, have prompted provincewide curfews and strict security measures. Although the United States handed responsibility for the security of Anbar to the Iraqi government in September, U.S. Marines this week returned to Ramadi in observation roles, patrolling areas from which they had largely withdrawn.

More of http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020403744.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009020403795&s_pos=">this article on the Washington Post site

We are paying for the Awakening. This is a big part of what has kept down the violence, relatively speaking, in Iraq over the last 20 months or so. If we lose the Sheiks then do we lose the relative peace we bought and paid for?