Not ours. Iraq's.

I've dug around a bit and honestly can't find out anything on the currently elected leaders who are still serving. Can anyone find me a link? I'm just asking for help.

Also, I cannot find out when the next election is. Does anyone know that?

CJ, damn man, you are so good at finding a great topic. Of course, the Coalition Provisional Authority is long gone. For everyone following along, this is the transitional government that replaced the interim government that replaced the CPA that replaced the military commanders that replaced Saddam. I am also mighty curious about the permanent Iraqi government.

I just visited the Iraqi Election Information Network and found it under construction, so I went to their parent organization, the National Democratic Institute and found their information to be totally out of date. So, I turned my attention to the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq and the International Mission for Iraqi Elections only to find that their last update was over two years ago. Then I asked Uncle Sam, only to find that the State Department has removed all of their information on-line, but at least the Pentagon remembers the Iraqi elections. Jaunting over to the Council on Foreign Relations I found that their information was last updated in 2005. So, I asked the United Nations and found that they still talking of the 2005 election in the future tense, but at least they still talk about Iraq in the present. In Iraq, the largest U.S. embassy in the world is feeble on the subject, so like you, I am curious about what others may have discovered along the way.

If you can read Arabic, the current Iraqi government has a website. Maybe they mention something about future elections in those elegant squigglies.

LOL

I thought Missing held the record for too much time on his hands, but Littlesongs, your last, fully linked and reference post sets a record for filling idol time.

I am an ace researcher, so it only took a small portion of an hour, and I felt it was worth it. If Americans are to believe we are fighting for Iraqi democracy, they deserve to know that many of the main players do not take Iraqi democracy seriously anymore. That ought to be chilling, not funny.

Here is the Iraqi government link translated.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ar&u=http://www.cabinet.iq/&sa=X& oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.cabinet.iq/%26hl%3 Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den-us

If that doesn't work, (should be OK on a mac, but not sure about PC's) go to the link in Littlesongs post, copy and paste the address into Google, search it, and click on "Translate this page"

I suspect that the hope of democracy in Iraq is indeed gone. I suspect we've discovered they are just too stupid and set in their centuries old ways to live in a democracy.

I further suspect that our goal now is only to figure out how to get out of there without Iran taking over.

Here something!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/19/AR2008031903520. html

It appears there are going to be provincial elections...

"The decision came two days after Vice President Cheney came to Baghdad urging Iraqi leaders to make more progress on political reconciliation. The council passed the measure after Adel Abdul Mahdi, one of Iraq's two vice presidents, withdrew his opposition. Under the legislation, Iraq would hold provincial elections by Oct. 1.

The law attempts to address concerns of Iraqis in predominantly Sunni provinces who feel they have been denied fair representation under the current group of local leaders. Kurdish areas, which have been governed largely independently, are excluded from the legislation's provisions.

In a statement, the presidential council said the measure would buttress Iraq's political system by extending power through federalism. "

"The law attempts to address concerns of Iraqis in predominantly Sunni provinces who feel they have been denied fair representation under the current group of local leaders."

Weren't these the dudes who refused to take part in the elections.

Well...

What a freaking mess! Here are some links to the current state of things. It's not really solid as the state is divided into many provinces, parties, some with sub-divisions themselves.

The Constitution is really only a framework with much authority left to be legislated. That's exaberated by the incomplete election process.

It's just not stable enough to even relate to a timeline of elections, current status, etc...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq#Government_and_politics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Iraq

This adds some perspective, IMHO. The state of the framework required to even call the elections "fair" is very much in flux.

http://www.usip.org/congress/testimony/2007/0328_perito.html

" I suspect that the hope of democracy in Iraq is indeed gone. I suspect we've discovered they are just too stupid and set in their centuries old ways to live in a democracy.

I further suspect that our goal now is only to figure out how to get out of there without Iran taking over."

Me too. Although, in all honestly, I posted this topic on the heels of watching something last night that I just could not believe and take at face value. So I wanted help in researching it more. Thanks, Littlesongs - I just didn't know where to start.

Maybe this is off topic but how to you post a link to a website like littlesongs did in that first post?

\ link{URL, text description} Link to URL with text description
only don't leave a space between the backslash and the word "link" like I did

See Formatting under documentation in the left frame of the
pdxradio page

ahh thanks.