Cheney On Iraq Democracy; Not Iranian, Not American; But Iraqi

Either AP or Yahoo! really are messing with this headline:

"Cheney Says He Doesn't See Iraq Theocracy "

Here's what he said:

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"They will do it their way," Cheney said. "They will do it in accordance with their culture and their history and their beliefs and whatever role they decide they want to have for religion in their society. And that's as it should be."

The United Iraqi Alliance — a Shiite-led group whose leaders have ties to neighbor Iran — has taken a big lead in results being tallied for the Jan. 30 election.

Cheney said he does not think that means Iraq will have a theocracy like that in neighboring Iran, where individual rights are restricted.

The vice president noted that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, has said he does not believe clerics should play a direct role in the day-to-day operations of government.
"I think there are a great many people involved in the political process in Iraq who will seek some kind of balance," Cheney told "Fox News Sunday."

"But in the final analysis, the bottom line for everybody to remember here is, this is not going to be, you know, an Iraqi version of America. This is going to be Iraqi. It's going to be written by the Iraqis, for the Iraqis, implemented and executed by them," Cheney said...