Iraq’s interim president accused Iran on Wednesday of meddling in the Iraqi election process, adding to mounting concerns about the viability of the landmark vote scheduled for January 30.
Ghazi al-Yawar said Iran is coaching candidates sympathetic to Tehran and pouring ”huge amounts of money” into the Iraqi election campaign in the hope of producing a loyal, Shi’ite-dominated government in Baghdad.
The comments by the president highlighted a new cause of concern one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin bluntly remarked he cannot imagine how elections can go ahead in Iraq under the ”total occupation” of foreign troops.
But United States President George Bush once again scotched any notion that the elections might be delayed, despite issuing a warning that violence is set to escalate ahead of the vote.
”The terrorists will do all they can to delay and disrupt free elections in Iraq, and they will fail,” he said at a California military base. ”Free elections will proceed as planned.”
After a brief lull following the US-led assault to defeat insurgents in the city of Fallujah, violence has continued with the number of US military personnel killed in action since the invasion now almost 1 000.
A major worry ahead of the vote is that the more unstable Sunni Muslim areas in the west of the country will not be ready to go to the polls, creating an imbalance with the relatively stable strongholds of the majority Shi’ite Muslims.
The comments by Yawar, made in an interview to the Washington Post and echoed by Jordan’s King Abdullah II, further underlined concerns that Iran’s alleged role in the vote could widen the Sunni-Shi’ite split even more.
Iran’s Shi’ite theocratic regime has consistently denied charges of interfering in Iraq, where 60% of the population are Shi’ites.
”Unfortunately, time is proving, and the situation is proving, beyond any doubt that Iran has very obvious interference in our business — a lot of money, a lot of intelligence activities and almost interfering daily … especially in the south-east side of Iraq,” said Yawar, who has backed holding the elections on time.
The Jordanian monarch was even more explicit about Iran’s aims.
”It is in Iran’s vested interest to have an Islamic republic of Iraq … and therefore the involvement you’re getting by the Iranians is to achieve a government that is very pro-Iran,” he told the same daily.
”I’m sure there’s a lot of people, a lot of Iranians in there that will be used as part of the polls to influence the outcome,” Abdullah said, adding that Iran has encouraged more than one million Iranians to cross into Iraq.
Hopes had been pinned on Iraq’s fledgling security forces growing into their tasks before the election, but a combination of attacks on police and inexperience have led officials to admit they are not yet up to the job.
Iraqi troops ”are not as mature as they need to be for the security environment that’s going to exist in the next several months”, said General John Abizaid, commander of US forces in the Gulf.
Meanwhile, British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon was visiting British forces in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, just days after a battle group returned from a controversial deployment near Baghdad.
Hoon was meeting members of the Scottish Black Watch regiment whose 850-member battle group returned to base on Saturday after a controversial month-long deployment that left five of their members dead.
Britain has about 8 500 troops in relatively tame southern Iraq, around Basra, compared with 138 000 US troops in the centre and north.
Violence continued to simmer on the ground with at least one police officer killed in an attack by armed men on a police station in Samarra, north of Baghdad, and three people wounded in a bomb blast in the Iraqi capital.
Assailants in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday targeted the country’s minority Christians by setting off explosions in two churches — one of them Chaldean, the other Armenian. There were no casualties.
However, against the familiar background of violence and political rows over its future, one of Iraq’s postwar success stories was again in the spotlight when Australia said it will host a football international against the national side.
Iraq’s team inspired the country when it reached the semifinals of the Athens Olympics and also managed to get to the quarterfinals of the Asian Cup. They are ranked 45th in the world.
The match with Australia will be played on March 26, but no venue has been announced. — Sapa-AFP