Experts cautious in assessing Iraq election

[MadisonProgressive]

Analysts: High turnout, low violence a positive step but not a turning point

By Robin Wright

Updated: 8:55 a.m. ET Dec. 16, 2005
For President Bush, the strong turnout for Iraq's election yesterday may represent the best day since the fall of Baghdad 32 months ago because all major factions participated in the political process, according to U.S. and Middle East analysts. But the sobering reality, they added, is that the vote by itself did not resolve Iraq's lingering political disputes.

After weeks of an increasingly divisive debate at home that helped sink the president's approval rating to an all-time low, the Bush administration appeared buoyed by the throngs at the polls and the low violence. Flanked in the Oval Office by six young Iraqis, all with a purple-stained finger signifying they had voted, Bush called the election a "major milestone" on the road to democracy.

<<SNIP>>

Bush is expected to try to capitalize on the vote to resist calls for setting a timetable for a U.S. exit from Iraq. He will play host today to a bipartisan group from Congress that will discuss Iraq, officials said.

Among those scheduled to join the president, Vice President Cheney and their foreign policy team are Democratic Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), Mark Pryor (Ark.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.), as well as Republican Sens. Norm Coleman (Minn.), Olympia J. Snowe (Maine), Arlen Specter (Pa.), Pete V. Domenici (N.M.) and John Thune (S.D.).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10487681/

It looks like the DLC is fully represented!!

:mad: :puke: