Here Come the Iraqi Elections!

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Sgt Schultz
Hey idgit - I know Germany declared war on the U.S. Must I respond every time you point it out something everyone knows in some gleeful and adolescent attempt to show I know nothing? You stated that Iraq never attacked us. I pointed out examples of where one country did not "attack" another but a war ensued nonetheless. I haven't stated ONE thing that was incorrect, your problem is a lack of depth in your thinking / reasoning because your modus operendi is to try to "pounce" as quickly as possible on a perceived gaffe. Pathetic.The ultimate result is that you are the one who looks foolish. Keep trying.

And once again you got the facts wrong on Congressmen with sons/daughters in the service.

"Shut the fuck up ball-licker" - wow did you think that one up yourself too?

LOL Yes you did say much that was incorrect. But being the typical lying, Neo Con enabler, you can't take responsiblity for your blunders. Maybe you should work on the Dubya wonderteam of non-dissenting kool-Aid drinkers and fuck-up another war. Typical. BUT I'M SUPPOSED TO BE THE NUT. Keep defending bullshit to your last gasp with errors and unsustainable analogies fraut with faulty logic.

BTW, Clinton didn't really have sex, because oral isn't sex lol. And you probably hate him as much as you adopt his semanticist bullshit.

[Nickdfresh]

Zarqawi Associate Arrested and Did Bush Say That?

An Iraqi policeman secures the area following a car bomb blast in Baghdad's Dora neighborhood,...
Al-Zarqawi Associates Arrested in Iraq
Friday, January 28, 2005 9:00 AM EST
The Associated Press
By SAMEER N. YACOUB


Authorities in Iraq have arrested two close associates of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, including the chief of the terror mastermind's Baghdad operation, the government said Friday, two days ahead of historic elections that extremists have vowed to subvert.

Insurgents, meanwhile, targeted more polling sites across the country, and a suicide car bomber killed four policemen in the capital. U.S. fighter jets thundered through the skies over Baghdad throughout the morning in a show of force against the militants.

American troops and insurgents exchanged fire on a major Baghdad thoroughfare. The crackle of gunfire could be heard over the noon call to prayer.

Qassim Dawoud, a top security adviser, told reporters that the arrests of the al-Zarqawi lieutenants occurred in mid-January but gave few details. Dawoud said one of the men, Salah Suleiman al-Loheibi, headed al-Zarqawi's Baghdad operation and had met with the Jordanian-born terror leader more than 40 times over three months.

The other was identified as Ali Hamad Yassin al-Issawi.

Al-Zarqawi heads al-Qaida's affiliate in Iraq, which like other militant groups has threatened to kill anyone who takes part in Sunday's election. It repeated those warnings in a new Web message Friday, telling Iraqis they could get hit by shelling or other attacks if they approach polling stations, which it called "the centers of atheism and of vice."

"We have warned you, so don't blame us. You have only yourselves to blame," it said.

On Thursday, the group posted a video on the Internet showing the murder of a candidate from Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's party. The tape included a warning to Allawi personally: "You traitor, wait for the angel of death."

Friday's announcement brings to three the number of purported al-Zarqawi lieutenants arrested this month. The announcement appeared aimed at bolstering public confidence in security forces in advance of Sunday's election.

Officials fear a low turnout in Sunday's vote _ particularly among Sunni Arabs _ could tarnish the legitimacy of the new government. Iraqis will choose a 275-member National Assembly and governing councils in the country's 18 provinces.

The U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, John Negroponte, insisted some Sunnis will turn out to vote. "Sunnis don't only live in some of these beleagered provinces, they live here in Baghdad, they live in other parts of the country," Negroponte said on CBS's "The Early Show." "I think you're going to see participation across the board."

Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority is eager to vote, expecting the election to establish their domination of the country after decades of repression. Sunni Arabs, however, may follow calls by some leaders to boycott the vote _ or may be intimidated by the violence that has been at its worst in mainly Sunni regions north and west of Baghdad.

Expatriate Iraqis began casting ballots amid tight security in early voting in 14 countries from Australia to Sweden to the United States.

"This is a long dream that now comes true," said 56-year-old Karim Jari before casting his vote in Sydney, Australia, where young children mingled in line with elderly Kurdish women in head-to-toe black robes and men in colorful traditional costumes. "We hope this is a new beginning."

Friday's suicide car bombing rattled Baghdad's Doura neighborhood, a flashpoint in recent days, with several street battles between insurgents and Iraqi National Guard troops, and with assassinations of government officials.

Police opened fire on the speeding car in an attempt to stop it just as it burst into flames. Hours later, another car bomb exploded on the neighborhood's main road, causing some damage to a school where voters are to cast ballots Sunday. No one was hurt.

Elsewhere, insurgents hit designated polling centers in at least six major cities across the country. Gunmen attacked a school to be used as a polling station in Kirkuk, killing one policeman, officials said.

Bombs blasted three more schools designated as polling sites in the city of Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad. A mortar shell landed on a house close to a school believed to be used as polling site in the western city of Ramadi, wounding two women and two children, a hospital doctor said.

In southern Iraq, a roadside bomb hit an Iraqi police vehicle, killing one officer and wounding three others, said police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaydi. The attack occurred in the town of Zubair, south of the port city of Basra.

Also Friday, insurgents shelled a U.S. Marine base south of Baghdad, injuring three American troops and three civilians, the military said.

Authorities on Thursday night found the bodies of four Iraqi National Guardsmen who had been shot dead in Ramadi, capital of the troubled Anbar province. Police believe the four had been kidnapped several days ago.

President Bush, in an interview published in The New York Times on Friday, said he would withdraw the 150,000 U.S. forces from Iraq if the new government formed after Sunday's vote asks for a pullout. But Bush said he expected the country's new leaders would want multinational forces to stay.

"I've, you know, heard the voices of the people that presumably will be in a position of responsibility after these elections _ although you never know," Bush said in an interview with the newspaper. "But it seems like most of the leadership there understands that there will be a need for coalition troops at least until Iraqis are able to fight."

[Nickdfresh]

Milestone elections begin in Iraq
Polls open in country's first free vote in a half-century

Sunday, January 30, 2005 Posted: 12:08 AM EST (0508 GMT)


BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A trickle of Iraqis have began voting in milestone elections designed to steer the country down the road of democracy.

Polls opened across Iraq at 7 a.m. (11 p.m. Saturday ET), under the watchful eye of Iraqi security forces and U.S. troops.

Interim President Ghazi al-Yawer was among the first to vote in the country's first free elections in half a century, following decades of brutal oppression and nearly two perilous years of war and insurgency.

"Deep in my heart, I feel that Iraqis deserve free elections," al-Yawer said after voting in Baghdad, shortly after polls opened.

"This will be our first step towards joining the free world and being a democracy that Iraqis will be proud of."

In Baghdad alone, 15,000 U.S. soldiers were on patrol for the voting, which ends at 5 p.m. (9 a.m. Sunday ET).

As the voting began, the looming question was how many of the 14.2 million Iraqis registered to vote would cast ballots, amid vows by insurgents to "wash" the streets with "voters' blood."

Of particular concern was the turnout of Sunnis in central Iraq, where the violence has been most pronounced in the past few weeks.

Iraqi officials conceded that violence was likely to occur, but they urged voters not to let the threat deter them from exercising the democratic right to choose their leaders.

"Your participation will foil the terrorists," said Thair al-Naqib, a spokesman for interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. "The elections are a great success for the people -- it will represent the rule of law, not the rule of violence."

Gen. George Casey, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said he was "fairly optimistic" about the security measures that have been put in place at 30,000 polling stations across the California-size country.

"At the end of the day, I'm quite confident that between the Iraqi police, military and the coalition, there will be a relatively secure environment across Iraq so the Iraqi people can vote safely," he said.

Iraqis are electing a 275-member transitional National Assembly, which will draft a new constitution and pick the country's next president and two vice presidents. The president, in turn, will select a prime minister.

Voters are also electing members of 18 provincial councils. In addition, residents of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region are electing a Kurdish parliament.

The night before, elaborate security measures, including travel restrictions and a ban on vehicle traffic, gave normally bustling Baghdad the appearance of a ghost town. The country's borders and airspace are sealed, and a nighttime curfew was in effect.
Lengthy lists on ballots

After navigating security checkpoints to get to their polling places, Iraqi voters face a lengthy ballot on which they may choose one of 111 electoral slates competing for National Assembly seats. Due to security concerns, names of the 7,000 candidates vying for office weren't revealed until the final days of January.

Each slate will get a number of seats in the new assembly proportional to the vote it receives nationwide. Two broad-based slates -- the United Iraqi Alliance and the Iraqi List -- are expected to lead the pack.

The United Iraqi Alliance is a Shiite-dominated slate of candidates backed by a leading cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. While most of its support comes from the Shiite majority -- about 60 percent of the population -- the alliance also includes some smaller Sunni and Kurdish groups.

Included in the alliance is the Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmed Chalabi, who had a close relationship with Washington before the war but later fell out of favor amid questions about whether he had supplied misleading information about Saddam's weapons capability.

The Iraqi List is led by Allawi, who became the face of Iraqi government after sovereignty was restored in June. The slate contains both Shiite and Sunni candidates but is largely secular.

Also likely to do well in the vote is the Kurdistan Alliance List, a united slate that includes the two main Kurdish political parties and nine smaller Kurdish parties.

Kurds make up less than 20 percent of the population, but they are expected to vote in large numbers because of a generally stable security situation in the northern part of the country, where they are concentrated.

Sunnis, who dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein despite making up less than a quarter of the population, are likely to see an erosion in their political position after the vote. Not only is the security situation tenuous in many Sunni areas, but also, two influential Sunni groups -- the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Association of Muslim Scholars -- are boycotting the elections.

However, interim President Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni, is participating, heading a slate called The Iraqis. He said Saturday that he believed a majority of Iraqis would turn out for the vote.

Saturday, insurgents made their presence known with a series of attacks, including a rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone that killed two Americans and injured five others.

In Khanaqin, a Kurdish town near the Iranian border, two bombings at a U.S.-Iraqi Joint Coordination Center killed three Iraqi soldiers and five Iraqi civilians. A roadside bombing in western Baghdad killed a U.S. soldier.

Three polling stations and a police station in northern Baghdad were attacked by gunmen, who wounded five Iraqi soldiers and three Iraqi police officers.
U.S. stake

The elections mark a pivotal moment not only for the Iraqi people, but also for President Bush and his international allies who sent in troops to topple Saddam, only to find themselves dealing with a violent insurgency that has largely frustrated their best efforts to quash it.

"The terrorists and those who benefited from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein know that free elections will expose the emptiness of their vision for Iraq. That is why they will stop at nothing to prevent or disrupt this election," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

"Every Iraqi who casts his or her vote deserves the admiration of the world."

Bush also reiterated the argument he made January 20 in his inaugural address, that a democratic Iraq will make America more secure.

"As hope and freedom spread, the appeal of terror and hate will fade," he said. "There is not a democratic nation in our world that threatens the security of the United States."

Meanwhile, Iraqi expatriates in 14 countries around the world, including the United States, have one last opportunity Sunday to cast votes, as the three-day window for out-of-country voting closes.

Election officials reported Saturday that at least 84,400 people had voted abroad so far, about 30 percent of the 280,300 Iraqi expatriates who registered. Turnout in the United States was about 22 percent after the first day of voting.

CNN's Cal Perry contributed to this report.

CNN

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
"This will be our first step towards joining the free world and being a democracy that Iraqis will be proud of."


"Your participation will foil the terrorists," said Thair al-Naqib, a spokesman for interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. "The elections are a great success for the people -- it will represent the rule of law, not the rule of violence."

Not according to Ted Kennedy...

[Sgt Schultz]

Originally posted by ELVIS
Not according to Ted Kennedy...

LOL - exactly E.

[Sgt Schultz]

Yeah that George Bush, he sure sucks ass don't he?

[Sgt Schultz]

[Sgt Schultz]

72% Iraqi Turnout Stuns U.S. Press

Preliminary reports that turnout in Sunday's Iraq election has topped 70 percent have surprised American reporters, many of whom had predicted that terrorists would succeed in sabotaging the U.S.- backed referendum.

"I have to say, it's going a lot better than I thought it would," Rod Nordland, Newsweek's Baghdad bureau chief, said Sunday as the numbers came in.

"The attacks by the insurgents, while they're numerous, haven't reached that kind of critical threshold where it really kept everybody home,".

With an hour left to go before the polls in Iraq close, Reuters reported that turnout had reached 72 percent nationwide. Election officials in Shiite areas say turnout there may top 90 percent.

Initial voter response was slow as the polls opened late Saturday U.S. time, but increased dramatically after threats of spectacular attacks failed to materialize. Of 5300 polling stations, only 15 reported attacks. 29 people were killed, including five police officers.

"Once it seemed like the worst was over, [voters] came out in very large numbers," Nordland said. While Sunni turnout was lower, "it was a lot better than would have been expected."

[Nickdfresh]

I do hope things turn out alright, but there are too many possibilities in the long run.

[ELVIS]

Awesome pics, Schultz...

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Allow me to put my two cents in on this, I'm gonna do my best to remove the political and financial ramifications....

The main purpose that the Administration has given towards Iraq was to initally remove the WMD and then to install an Iraqi democratically-elected government...

And as Sean Hannity says over and over and over on their show, to stop the mass graves and torture chambers....

Anyone with common sense abhors the cruel treatment that Saddam and his henchmen did to the Iraqi people over the years, I don't think anyone can ever disagree with that in their right mind....

But do the majority of everyday Americans really long for a democratic Iraq ??

In my humble opinion, while nearly all Americans, like I said before, hate the thought of what Saddam has done in a humanitarian point of view, they simply cannot worry about what happens in another part of the world, tens of thousands of miles away....

Typical Americans, not fat-cat Americans, must worry about putting food on the table for their families, worry about affording health care, worry about keeping the heat on, and so on....

And so while I really don't want to use the term "don't care", how can these people really "care" about what is going on halfway around the world ??

By the way, what do many of the sons and daughters of these typical Americans have to do out of necessity ?? Why, join the military, of course (yes, I did my 20 years, thank you)... But you don't see the siblings of those who support this position in harms way....I believe in "9/11", it stated that only 1 sibling of the 538 members of Congress have joined the military....

And now, with over 1400 sons and daughters of these typical Americans dead fighting for this "cause", and certainly hundreds, if not thousands more, the supporters of this initiative stand on the sidelines and give their country club golf-clap for a job well done....

That's what wanted to say... I'm not interested in any flamefest, nor will I engage in one, just my two cents....

[Nickdfresh]

Saddam also did most of his murdering during the Shia Rebellion in the south right after the 1991 Gulf War. Bush Sr. called for an uprising, then stood by as Iraqi Hind-D attack helicopters supported Saddam's troops and secret police as they slaughtered and disposed of people in the mass graves. The same graves filled with Shiites we so lustily dug up in our propaganda effort to legitimize this War as anything over than misguided self-interest. Slight contradiction there, eh?

[DLR'sCock]

Originally posted by Va Beach VH Fan
Allow me to put my two cents in on this, I'm gonna do my best to remove the political and financial ramifications....

The main purpose that the Administration has given towards Iraq was to initally remove the WMD and then to install an Iraqi democratically-elected government...

And as Sean Hannity says over and over and over on their show, to stop the mass graves and torture chambers....

Anyone with common sense abhors the cruel treatment that Saddam and his henchmen did to the Iraqi people over the years, I don't think anyone can ever disagree with that in their right mind....

But do the majority of everyday Americans really long for a democratic Iraq ??

In my humble opinion, while nearly all Americans, like I said before, hate the thought of what Saddam has done in a humanitarian point of view, they simply cannot worry about what happens in another part of the world, tens of thousands of miles away....

Typical Americans, not fat-cat Americans, must worry about putting food on the table for their families, worry about affording health care, worry about keeping the heat on, and so on....

And so while I really don't want to use the term "don't care", how can these people really "care" about what is going on halfway around the world ??

By the way, what do many of the sons and daughters of these typical Americans have to do out of necessity ?? Why, join the military, of course (yes, I did my 20 years, thank you)... But you don't see the siblings of those who support this position in harms way....I believe in "9/11", it stated that only 1 sibling of the 538 members of Congress have joined the military....

And now, with over 1400 sons and daughters of these typical Americans dead fighting for this "cause", and certainly hundreds, if not thousands more, the supporters of this initiative stand on the sidelines and give their country club golf-clap for a job well done....

That's what wanted to say... I'm not interested in any flamefest, nor will I engage in one, just my two cents....

That is correct sir.

Nick is also correct.

[DLR'sCock]

I hope the new Gov't tells the US to get the fuck out. Of course, rigging elections is as old as prostitution.....

It is done in the US on local and the National level....I imagine it would be too easy in Iraq...

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Saddam also did most of his murdering during the Shia Rebellion in the south right after the 1991 Gulf War. Bush Sr. called for an uprising, then stood by as Iraqi Hind-D attack helicopters supported Saddam's troops and secret police as they slaughtered and disposed of people in the mass graves. The same graves filled with Shiites we so lustily dug up in our propaganda effort to legitimize this War as anything over than misguided self-interest. Slight contradiction there, eh?

True enough. We called off our own attack dogs in '91 thinking the Iraqi Shiites would rise up and defend themselves. They didn't. Interestingly enough, Bush the First was acting in proper accordance with UN guidelines at the time when he held up Coalition Forces. We probably should have destroyed Saddam's war machine entirely but the fear at the time was that Iran would take advantage of the situation. So much, once again, for UN guidelines when Iraq is concerned, huh?