so, its a useless constitution that we are killing time waiting for rejection and dying for, why don't we just get out what the

Jaafari’s stand is contrary to the electoral program of the mostly-Shiite United Iraqi Alliance that designated him as the head of the government — a program that included the demand for a timetable for the withdrawal of occupation troops — there is much less certainty that he represents his constituency in this regard than for Talabani. It is the contrary that is certain as a matter of fact: you recalled yourself, Juan, the fact that about 120 Iraqi MPs have called for the withdrawal of US troops. To be more accurate, they signed a petition (put forward by followers of Muqtada al-Sadr in the Parliament) demanding that the official request made by the Iraqi government to the UN Security Council to extend the presence of multinational forces be rescinded, that such issues be deferred to the Parliament and not decided by the government, and that a withdrawal timetable be set immediately.

Now let’s make a very simple calculation. There were 275 MPs elected to the Iraqi national Assembly. Out of those, there are little over 70 members of the Kurdish Alliance and little less than 40 MPs of the pro-US Allawi’s list. As you know, it is highly unlikely that any of those roughly 110 MPs signed the petition. This means that the overwhelming majority of the remaining 165 MPs, most of them UIA members, signed it. In other words, an overwhelming majority of the UIA, to which Jaafari belongs, has disavowed him on this issue. For a democrat (with a small d), no “consensus” involving the likes of Jaafari — i.e. members of an executive betraying the parliamentary majority which has designated them — can be regarded as representative of a people’s will. That’s why invoking this kind of support as an argument for the continued presence of US troops in Iraq — as Bush & Co. do regularly — is not acceptable in my view, and in the view of millions of Iraqi and US citizens.