White House regrets ban of Iraq at Olympics

For months now, the Bush administration has been urging patience about progress in Iraq, believing that the various factions would, in time, find a way to live together.

So it had to come as a disappointment to the White House today when the International Olympic Committee make good on its threat to ban Iraq from competing in the Beijing Games because of political interference.

The Associated Press reports that the dispute involved an internal feud within the government over who should run its effort -- a National Olympic Committee, whose members included several Sunni holdovers from the Saddam era, or Iraq's Youth and Sports Ministry, dominated by Shiites. The Maliki government dissolved the National Olympic Committee in May, months after four of its members were kidnapped (they remain unaccounted for). The IOC warned that the move could imperil Iraq's case and invited the Maliki government to Switzerland to discuss remedies. No go, no show.

For athletes, the dispute means five competitors -- two rowers, two sprinters, one archer, one weightlifter and one judo expert -- will not be going to Beijing.

For world sports, the dispute means a missed opportunity for some feel-good moments at the Beijing Olympics. At the Athens Games in 2004, the first since Saddam's fall -- and the end of an era where his son Odai tortured athletes who didn't measure up -- Iraq's soccer team made an exciting run to the semifinals.

"Clearly we'd very much like to have seen Iraq's athletes in Beijing," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said. "We are very disappointed that the athletes have been so ill-served by their own government's actions."

But for the White House, the moment marks yet another reminder that progress in Iraq can be elusive. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino put the sadness on the athletes "who have trained so hard, and were finally going to represent a country that is free, and sovereign, and working to establish its democracy." They, she said, "have to be terribly disappointed."

But asked about the latest hiccup in Iraqi politics -- the delay in provincial elections because of objections from the Kurds -- Perino had to acknowledge that the pace of change in Iraq is slow. In her daily briefing she said:

There's deep-rooted tensions and some hatred even inside Iraq and then outside within the region. But they've made great strides.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: An Iraqi guard stands at the entrance of the Iraqi Olympic Committee office in Baghdad on May 27. Credit: Hadi Mizban / Associated Press

Comments

[Dan Hodul]

Oh, we don't "politicize" the Olympics...nothing like that...

I guess the dumbing down of America is complete in LA...the Times reports five athletes won't be going...let's see, two plus two, plus one plus one....