Vote? What Vote?

Tell me you didn't see this coming?

With just over two weeks until the Iraq election, the United States is lowering its expectations for both the turnout and the results of the vote, increasingly emphasizing other steps over the next year as more important to Iraq's political transformation, according to U.S. officials.

The Bush administration played down voter turnout yesterday in determining the election's legitimacy and urged Americans not to get bogged in a numbers game in judging the balloting, a reflection of the growing concern over how much the escalating insurgency and the problem of Sunni participation may affect the vote.

Maybe they can put all those out-of-work WMD inspectors to work digging up votes.