Chalabi-led panel plans to bar 4 Sunnis who won from taking office

[ck4829]

A committee that vets candidates for ties to Saddam Hussein's regime is recommending four people elected to parliament from the winning list of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi be disqualified, an official on the committee said Monday. The challenge risks deepening Iraq's sectarian tensions.

If the courts accept the recommendation, it could alter the outcome of the March 7 vote in which Allawi's secular Shiite-Sunni coalition beat a bloc led by Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki by just two seats.

In particular, that could fuel feelings of disenfranchisement by Iraq's minority Sunnis, many of whom backed Allawi's list and believe the vetting committee is trying to rob them of a victory and tilt the election outcome back to the Shiite-led majority.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Monday that the Justice and Accountability Committee found the four politicians have ties to Saddam's Baath Party. He said the committee was also pushing for the disqualification of two other winning candidates, one from al-Maliki's list and a Kurdish candidate. He would not identify them by name.

Allawi's Iraqiya bloc rejected the step.

"The decisions of the Accountability and Justice Committee are not legal," said Hamid al-Mutlaq, a winning candidate on the Iraqiya list. "Those six winning candidates have the approval of (the election commission) and this decision is a political one, not a legal one."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100329/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

Nothing says "freedom" like having some panel bar guys who win elections from actually taking office, right?

[spanone]

1. it's the everlasting cheney effect...

[mike_c]

2. I love the smell of democracy in the morning....

Sheesh. How many people did we kill for this?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. It smells like Ben Nelson's balls.

:hurts:

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. This appears to be apart from the Allawi candidates arrested (or about to be)

At least four Sunni Muslim candidates who appear to have won parliamentary seats on the winning ticket of secular leader Ayad Allawi have become targets of investigation by security forces reporting to the narrowly defeated Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, according to interviews Saturday with relatives, Iraqi security forces and the U.S. military.

All four candidates ran in Diyala province, a restive mainly Sunni area north of Baghdad. One candidate who won more than 28,000 votes is being held incommunicado in a Baghdad jail, two other winners are on the run and the whereabouts of the fourth, a woman, are unknown.
...
Speaking on condition of anonymity because he isn't authorized to address the cases publicly, the official identified the four candidates as: Dahlaki, the Baquba council chairman who won nearly 12,000 votes, according to official results; Najm Abdullah al Harbi, a Diyala provincial council member with more than 28,000 votes; Mohammed Othman, former mayor of the town of Saadiya with nearly 10,000 votes; and Ghydaa Saeed, a political newcomer who's said to be under scrutiny because she's related to a cabinet member from Saddam Hussein's former regime. She won nearly 6,800 votes.

The security official said arrest warrants have been issued for the first three and that a fourth, for Saeed, is expected any day. He added that all the cases hinged on accusations related to terrorism.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/27/91209/malikis-forces-detain-investigate.html#ixzz0jTCxZFMR

[ck4829]

5. Ain't that a coincidence?

[kenny blankenship]

6. It was all worth it!

Year US UK Other Total
2003 486 53 41 580
2004 849 22 35 906
2005 846 23 28 897
2006 822 29 21 872
2007 904 47 10 961
2008 314 4 4 322
2009 149 1 0 150
2010 16 0 0 16
Total 4386 179 139 4704

[damntexdem]

7. Get our troops out of there before these nutcases set off the civil war again.

It's way past time to declare victory and leave.