Plan Called for Covert Aid in Iraq Vote

By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID E. SANGER, The New York Times, July 17, 2005

WASHINGTON, July 16 - In the months before the Iraqi elections in January, President Bush approved a plan to provide covert support to certain Iraqi candidates and political parties, but rescinded the proposal because of Congressional opposition, current and former government officials said Saturday.
In a statement issued in response to questions about a report in the next issue of The New Yorker, Frederick Jones, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said that "in the final analysis, the president determined and the United States government adopted a policy that we would not try - and did not try - to influence the outcome of the Iraqi election by covertly helping individual candidates for office."
The statement appeared to leave open the question of whether any covert help was provided to parties favored by Washington, an issue about which the White House declined to elaborate.

NOTE: A link to Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article, "Get Out the Vote: Did Washington try to manipulate Iraq’s election?" from the July 25, 2005 edition.