This article from Wapo helps address and debunk the conservative ideological myth that the US occupation of Iraq is primarily promoting democracy. (h/t Kevin Drum) From the article:

Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House, an advocacy group that hosted a Bush speech last week, called the situation “a travesty” and said she is “appalled” that more is not being done. “This is the time to show that democracy promotion is more than holding an election. If the U.S. can’t see fit to fund follow-up democracy promotion at this time,” then it is making a mistake, she said.

“The commitment to what the president of the United States will say every single day of the week is his number one priority in Iraq, when it’s translated into action, looks very tiny,” said Les Campbell, who runs programs in the Middle East for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, known as NDI.

NDI and its sister, the International Republican Institute (IRI), will see their grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development dry up at the end of this month, according to a government document, leaving them only special funds earmarked by Congress last year. Similarly, the U.S. Institute of Peace has had its funding for Iraq democracy promotion cut by 60 percent. And the National Endowment for Democracy expects to run out of money for Iraqi programs by September.

“Money keeps getting transferred away to security training. Democracy’s one of the things that’s been transferred,” said Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s project on democracy and the rule of law. “Without that, all the other stuff looks like just background work.”

[…]

The U.S. Institute of Peace faces similar cutbacks to its program. “It’s just vital,” said Daniel P. Serwer, an institute vice president. All the democracy programs in Iraq combined, he noted, cost less than one day of the U.S. military mission. “Am I absolutely sure that we will shorten the deployment time of American troops enough to justify the cost of the program? Yes,” he said.