Iraqi Democracy: Walkout or Timeout?

NPR | By Melissa Waters

Published July 10, 2006 at 4:00 PM EDT

As the trial of Saddam Hussein resumes, commentator Melissa Waters describes a phenomenon she calls "The Great Iraqi Walkout." She's seen it many times in her work training Iraqi judges and lawyers over the past three years, and Americans have seen it in the walkouts and boycotts conducted by the attorneys and co-defendants in Saddam Hussein's trial.

Waters says that the Great Iraqi Walkout looks like chaos to Americans -- but in fact, it's the way many Iraqis defuse tension. It's just another piece of evidence that Iraqi democracy is not going to look like American democracy.

Melissa Waters

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