Comment 24 for bug 1016294

I also had this problem and was able to fix it. I imagine the solution for each person will be different.

Find reverse dependencies:
$ apt-cache rdepends ia32-libs

For each of those dependencies, try one by one purging them:
For example:
$ sudo apt-get purge google-talkplugin

Of course, do due diligence and make sure purging that package is okay. Some of the packages may not even be installed.

Then try re-installing...
$ sudo apt-get install ia32-libs