NOW YOU TELL US. In the New York Times, former Iraq PM Ayad Allawi says that holding to the 2005 election timetable was a horrible mistake:

The paralysis that has afflicted the government in Baghdad, the sectarian disputes across the country and the failure to move toward reconciliation were all predictable outcomes of the senseless rush to hold national elections and put the Constitution in place. At the time, leaders from all major parties produced a memorandum calling for a delay of the elections, which I presented to Ghazi al-Yawer, then the interim president of Iraq.

Funny, he wasn't telling the U.S. Congress this back in September of 2004:

As we move forward, the next major milestone will be holding of the free and fair national and local elections in January next.

I know that some have speculated, even doubted, whether this date can be met. So let me be absolutely clear: Elections will occur in Iraq on time in January because Iraqis want elections on time.

For the skeptics who do not understand the Iraqi people, they do not realize how decades of torture and repression feed our desire for freedom. At every step of the political process to date the courage and resilience of the Iraqi people has proved the doubters wrong.

They said we would miss January deadline to pass the interim constitution.

We proved them wrong...

And I pledge to you today, we'll prove them wrong again over the elections.

And he was saying this stuff right up to the brink of the elections. Well, he's a politician, and it's not like the U.S. had any power in Iraq anyway. Among Allawi's proposed electoral reforms:

Furthermore, a new law should ban the use of religious symbols and rhetoric by candidates and parties — these have no place in democratic elections.

From your lips to God's ear, pal.