First Rumsfeld wants to reward the "good" Iraqis with voting. Then Armitage says nooooo - it'll be open to everyone.
Post-war plan? What frigging post-war plan? These people are lost. LOST.
Armitage: No Plans for Partial Iraq Election
Iraq's elections in January should encompass the entire country, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said on Friday, differing from comments by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that some violent areas could be excluded.
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Armitage said he knew of no plans to hold partial elections that exclude violent areas.
"I know of no changes and no plans. We're pushing ahead, fully supporting the Iraqi people, and the United Nations and the Iraqi electoral commission to have nationwide elections for a 275 person national assembly before the end of January," he told reporters after a House appropriations foreign aid subcommittee hearing.
Rumsfeld raised the possibility of partial elections on Thursday, just hours after Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and President Bush both insisted national elections would be held on schedule in January despite the flaring insurgency.
"If there were to be an area where the extremists focused during the election period, and an election was not possible in that area at that time, so be it. You have the rest of the election and you go on. Life's not perfect," Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Rumsfeld said there could be a situation where an election could be held in "three-quarters or four-fifths of the country. But in some places you couldn't because the violence was too great."
