U.S. Requires Iraqis to Elect Women

D I W A N I Y E H, Iraq, Feb. 26 -- The democracy that President Bush promised the Iraqis is being implemented across the country as U.S. officials create town councils.

The citizens are taught the basics: free debate, the art of the caucus and free and unfettered elections — with one exception: quotas for women.

When men in the regional council in the city of Diwaniyeh heard this on the day they were electing a budget committee, some, like the man in the second row NAME, objected to what would be, in effect, a rigged election to get a woman elected.

This is predominantly Shiite southern Iraq — a man's world, where women don't drive or hold jobs outside the home. And U.S. officials say they don't stand a chance of getting elected to anything unless the United States forces the issue in town after town with — a dirty word to many Americans — quotas.

"If you want to push harder to try to make forward progress, sometimes, especially in a temporary sense, quotas are not a bad idea," said NAME Costello, TITLE.

A lot of men in Iraq called this unnecessary. Women already are equal, they insisted, at this soccer field where there wasn't a female in sight. The man in the second row NAME argued that quotas actually hurt women's equality by reinforcing the notion that they are weak.

But an Iraqi educated abroad, who launched a women's rights center in Diwaniyeh with U.S. help, said Iraqi men are still caught in the past.

"I am now calling for the liberation of Iraqi men," said Dr. Maha Sakban.

Many of those at the opening of the women's center were, in fact, men who joined their wives in this banner day for Iraqi women. Of course, they still were the first at the table when the cake was cut. Apparently, it is going to take practice if it is going to take at all.