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via translation- ALERT - Iraq postpones provincial elections BAGHDAD, Aug. 7 - Iraq's electoral committee said on Thursday it can not hold provincial elections originally set for October as the failure to pass the bill in parliament means there is not enough time to prepare the polls.

Jawad Al-Maliki confirmed like candidate Shiite at the station of PM BAGHDAD - the number two of the party Dawa, Jawad Al-Maliki, was confirmed like candidate of Allliance Shiite at the post of Prime Minister in Iraq, announced to Saturday the chief of the supreme Council of the Islamic revolution (SCIRI), Abdel Aziz Hakim. "the political authority of Iraqi unified Alliance (AUI) met this day and approved the candidature of Jawad Al-Maliki for the post of Prime Minister, of Adel Abdel Mehdi at the post of vice-president of the Republic and that of sheik Khaled Al-Attiya to that of...

BAGHDAD -- The elections last December in Iraq were a monumental stage in my country's history and a testament to the courage of its people, who refuse to bow to any dictator or terrorist. As the wheels of democracy have begun to turn in Iraq, the people's wishes are becoming clearer and their representatives identified. To this end I am humbled and honored to be chosen by my coalition to lead Iraq's first democratically elected full-term government. My government's first challenge will be to stifle the terrorism that has plagued our country and defiled the name of Islam. While we...

THE U.S. AGENDA to promote democracy in the Middle East appears fatally wounded. The results of recent elections in Iraq, Egypt and especially Gaza and the West Bank have led many to conclude that this agenda is terribly misguided: wonderful in theory but disastrous in practice, enabling the most dangerous and antidemocratic elements in the region to gain power through democratic means. If true, this is certainly a worrisome turn of events. Can the skeptics be right? Is it simply too dangerous to promote freedom in the Arab world? Must the United States give up on promoting democracy and go...

In December 2004, I wrote a column that led with this line: "Mark it on your calendar: Next month, the Arab Middle East will revolt." The column placed the January 2005 Palestinian and Iraqi elections in historical context. These were not the revolutions of generals with tanks and terrorists with fatwas, but the slow revolutions of the ballot box, with political moderates and liberal reformers the genuinely revolutionary vanguard. To massage Churchill's phrase, these revolts were the beginning of democratic politics, where "jaw jaw" begins to replace "war war" and "terror terror." These slow revolts against tyranny and terror continue,...

Thousands of Sunni secular Shiite and Kurdish protesters took to the streets of Iraq Friday, Dec. 23, over what they called “the biggest election fraud in Middle East history.” Their umbrella group Maram alleges the UIA’s commanding lead in preliminary results of the Dec. 15 poll and was rigged and is calling for a new election. DEBKAfile’s sources reveal that the announcement by former prime minister Iyad Allawi, head of the Iraqi List and a key American ally, that he and the Sunni bloc of 30 lists were boycotting the elections, brought US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld dashing over to...

President's Address to the Nation The Oval Office In Focus: Renewal in Iraq 9:01 P.M. EST THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Three days ago, in large numbers, Iraqis went to the polls to choose their own leaders -- a landmark day in the history of liberty. In the coming weeks, the ballots will be counted, a new government formed, and a people who suffered in tyranny for so long will become full members of the free world. This election will not mean the end of violence. But it is the beginning of something new: constitutional democracy at the heart of the...

Up to 11 million people Iraqis voted in the landmark general election on Thursday, according to early estimates from electoral officials. Around 15.5 million Iraqis were called to polls to elect a 275-member parliament that will put in place the first full-term government since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. "The number of those who took part in the ballot should be between 10 and 11 million voters, according to our first estimates," said senior electoral official Farid Ayar. A figure of 11 million voters would put turnout at around 70 percent. Participation in the election for a...

'The Purple Sea Urchin of Democracy' Today belongs to the people of Iraq, and we wish them both a speedy and  successful path to the freedom  of democracy. "In spite of the violence, Iraqis have met every milestone,” President Bush said in Washington. As the Iraqis begin to vote with the first blast heard in Baghdad, they vote in their first parliamentary election since the country's constitution was raffled in October. The new Parliament called The Council of Representatives will form a Government to run the country for a full four year term. We must not forget that all this...

"A citizen, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen".From the eulogy delivered before Congress by Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee.

President Bush delivered the fourth of four speeches on Iraq. Today's speech was given at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in DC. Video of the speech is available at CSPAN. Speaking about this week's elections in Iraq, President Bush told the audience, "We are living through a watershed moment in the story of freedom." Text of today's speech. Brit Hume, Fox News, interviewed President Bush at length. The interview is being broadcast now, and should be rebroadcast in Brit's "Special Report" on replay tonight. Addressing the Heritage Foundation, Condi Rice said, "The world has shirked its duty to...

The Zarqaoui group announces an offensive of scale to the day before of the poll PARIS - the Iraqi Al-Qaïda branch directed by Abou Moussab Al-Zarqaoui announced Wednesday on the Internet the launching of an offensive of scale in Iraq against "the bastions of the apostates" in order to "disturb the weddings +démocratiques+ impiété and prostitution". "Your brothers in the military branch of the Al-Qaïda Organization in Mésopotamie, engaged, with all their brigades, a creditable conquest to shake the bastions of the non-believers and apostates and to disturb their weddings +démocratiques+ impiété and prostitution", writes the group in an...

A chief of list to legislative in Iraq killed in an attack BAGHDAD - the sunnite Mezher Nagi Al-Doulaïmi, chief candidate to legislative of Thursday in Iraq, was killed Tuesday by shootings of unknown in the rebellious Al-Anbar province, in the west of Baghdad, announced a source of safety. The victim was the chief of the free Party Iraqi progressist, a small formation which introduced three candidates, of which Doulaïmi, with the poll in this province. "Of unknown opened fire on its car with Ramadi (Al-Anbar chief town), killing it and wounding a person who accompanied it", according to...

Most living conditions are rated positively, seven in 10 Iraqis say their own lives are going well, and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve in the year ahead. Surprisingly, given the insurgents' attacks on Iraqi civilians, more than six in 10 Iraqis feel very safe in their own neighborhoods, up sharply from just 40 percent in a poll in June 2004. And 61 percent say local security is good — up from 49 percent in the first ABC News poll in Iraq in February 2004. Average household incomes have soared by 60 percent in the last 20 months (to $263...

One finger at a time TRIBUNE-REVIEW Iraq is under siege. And, for a moment, it has nothing to do with "insurgents," Saddam meltdowns or weak-kneed U.S. politicians. This siege is one that your average American is pretty familiar with: that mentally fatiguing final week leading to Election Day. Iraq resembles a targeted swing state; sophisticated media have taken hold. Savvy radio and television commercials bear a striking similarity to those produced here; political consultants are even advising campaigns on media saturation and how to react to developments.

With hat tips to FreePers Chris Dickson, Jenny Hatch, and ceogop (and apologies to any FreePers that I may have overlooked), I am again raising the point that we are to sport purple right index fingers this Monday-Thursday (Dec 12-15). Please see Purple Finger for Freedom and its directions for inking. Anyone with an appropriate ping list, please help spread the word. There have been far to few viewings of the aforementioned posts. Aye, maties, if we can wear the colors of our favorite football teams, we certainly can sport a purple finger for four days. Our soldiers, and the...

Thursday, December 08, 2005 Baghdad county Bill Roggio's last two posts from Iraq, Patrolling Haqlaniyah and On the Offensive in Ramadi describe a situation in which military operations have become a handmaiden to politics. Not American politics primarily , but Iraqi politics. For a sense of what that kind of politicking looks like Iraq the Model's synopsis at Pajamas Media is close to the best. Basically, the various tribes, religious and ethnic groups (even the Christians) are maneuvering for votes: including, surprise, surprise, the Sunni insurgents. "The new and interesting thing in this election is the large-scale participation of Sunni...

I'm doing some lobbying for a couple of new Iraqi bloggers who provide some fascinating insider information on Iraq. Vahal Abdulrahman is an Iraqi Kurd living in the DC area who is a staunch supporter of democracy in Iraq. His The Iraqi Vote focuses on Iraqi politics and the upcoming elections. He reveals today that Iyad Allawi was recently in Kurdistan to discuss a possible post-election coalition between his Iraqi National List and the Kurdistan Alliance "where Jalal Talabani would remain the president and Ayad Allawi would become Prime Minister." Nibras Kazimi is a visiting scholar at Hudson Institute and...

Knight Ridder's Scandalous Coverage of the Iraqi Elections October 18, 2005 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - On a day [Sunday October 16, 2005] when the success of the Bush Administration's establishment of not one, but two democracies in the Mid East, should have been the story, a San Francisco Bay Area newspaper - the Contra Costa Times - [a Knight Ridder product, edited by Chris Lopez and based in Walnut Creek, CA] chose to devote the majority of its Iraq coverage to largely invented and negative news. True, the story "Turnout Signals Progress" [the only semi-positive Iraq...

<p>KARABILAH, Iraq — U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces battled insurgents on two fronts Saturday in a restive western province, killing about 50 militants in a dusty frontier town in the military's latest campaign to stop foreign fighters infiltrating from neighboring Syria (search).</p>

BAGHDAD , Iraq – Acting on intelligence sources and tips provided by Iraqi citizens, Multi-National forces conducted simultaneous raids in the Rahwah and Karabilah regions to capture or kill terrorists within the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi network. Multiple sources of intelligence indicated that elements of the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi terrorist network were operating in the area, including key lieutenants, suicide bombers, and a contingent of foreign fighters. Multi-National forces engaged and destroyed these targets. Operations against suspected foreign fighter strongholds resulted in killing over a dozen terrorists and foreign fighters. Specifically the bodies of three Saudis and one Moroccan have been...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi forces swept through Baghdad on Sunday, erecting checkpoints and searching vehicles as they launched the largest offensive of its kind since Saddam Hussein's ouster, but insurgents hit back with suicide bombings and ambushes that killed at least 21 people, including a British soldier. [end] The first of more than 40,000 soldiers and police, who are being supported by U.S. forces, searched hundreds of vehicles and raided several houses, described as "terrorist dens" in Baghdad's Dora neighborhood, arresting several suspects, army Capt. Ihssan Abdel-Hamza said. Operation Lightning was launched as a direct challenge to the bloody wave...

More than 23,000 young Iraqis in the southern province of Dhiqar have responded to a call to set up a new battalion to protect the province. The provincial authorities have been swamped with applications, Governor Aziz Kadhem told the newspaper. He said the authorities had asked for maximum 1,000 volunteers but “we have received more than 23,000 applications so far.” The new force will be based in Nasiriya, the province’s capital and home to more than 550,000 people. Nasiriya, on the Euphrates River, is relatively quiet but, according to Kadhem, the new force is needed to bring stability across the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 5 - Iraq's major political parties agreed this evening to appoint a president and two vice presidents at a meeting of the national assembly on Wednesday, according to a senior assembly leader, breaking a two-month deadlock in negotiations to form a new government. The main Shiite and Kurdish political blocs have agreed to name Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader, as president; Adel Abdul Mahdi, a prominent Shiite Arab politician, as vice president; and Sheik Ghazi al-Yawar, the Sunni Arab president of the interim government, as the other vice president, said Hussein al-Shahristani, a vice speaker of the...

Iraqi combat capability on the upswing Written by W. Thomas Smith Jr. Friday April 1, 2005 "It's going to be tougher than anything you've ever experienced," a U.S. Marine recruiter warns a young leatherneck hopeful. "You'll face down your fears, overcome terrifying obstacles, and at times function on little food and no sleep." Sounds severe, but everything is relative. Recruits hoping to earn the title, "Marine," expect training to be demanding. They also take for granted the enormous efforts made to ensure their safety during dangerous training, and – despite accidents and the occasional "bad seed" drill-instructor – no one...

Many of Iraq's predominantly Sunni Arab insurgents would lay down their arms and join the political process in exchange for guarantees of their safety and that of their co-religionists, according to a prominent Sunni politician. Sharif Ali Bin al-Hussein, who heads Iraq's main monarchist movement and is in contact with guerrilla leaders, said many insurgents including former officials of the ruling Ba'ath party, army officers, and Islamists have been searching for a way to end their campaign against US troops and Iraqi government forces since the January 30 election.

Say the word mujahid — or holy warrior — these days and many inhabitants of Baghdad are likely to snigger. An appellation once worn as a badge of pride by anti-American insurgents has now become street slang for homosexuals, after men claiming to be captured Islamist guerrillas confessed that they were holding gay orgies in the popular Iraqi TV programme Terror in the Hands of Justice. For Iraqis opposed to the predominantly Sunni Islamist insurgency, Terror in the Hands of Justice, which airs twice daily on Iraqi public television, has broken the mystique of a force that used to strike...

IRAQ: Al Qaeda Losses Up, American Losses Down March 24, 2005: More Iraqis are losing their fear of terrorists. In the last three days, tips from Iraqis have led Iraqi police and troops to several terrorist hideouts. This has resulted in some spectacular gun battles, and the deaths of over 130 terrorists (and about a dozen police and soldiers.) The Iraqis have been using their growing force of SWAT teams to carry out the raids, with American forces providing backup and air cover. One raid, north of Baghdad, left 85 terrorists dead, and revealed a suicide car bomb workshop, as...

LIVE on FOX

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 23 - Iraqi and American forces killed at least 80 insurgents during a Tuesday morning raid on what appeared to be the biggest guerrilla training camp yet discovered, Iraqi officials said today. Seven Iraqi police officers were also killed and six were wounded in what American and Iraqi officials characterized as an especially fierce battle. "It was one of the largest such engagements that I'm aware of," said Col. Robert Potter, a spokesman for the American command in Baghdad. The number of anti-government fighters killed was the most reported in a single conflict since the American offensive...

Maj. Gen. William G. Webster Jr. listens as Maj. Gen. Mudhir Al Mawlla discusses the significance of the 41st Brigade during a ceremony honoring the activation of the unit March 3. Sgt. Andrew Miller Iraqi Army 41st Brigade activates By Sgt. Andrew Miller March 7, 2005 BAGHDAD (Army News Service, March 7, 2005) – The 41st Brigade of the Iraqi Army was activated March 3 during a ceremony at an Iraqi Army training facility here. More than 200 Iraqi Soldiers, who make up the headquarters element of the brigade, participated in the ceremony. Members of the brigade – who...

BAGHDAD, Feb. 26 -- U.S. forces have arrested an Iraqi father and son accused of participating in a 1982 massacre in the predominantly Shiite Muslim village of Dujail in retaliation for an assassination attempt on then-President Saddam Hussein. Senior U.S. officials said in interviews that Abdulla Rwayid and Muzhir Abdulla Rwayid were arrested Monday and charged with crimes against humanity for their alleged role in the killing of hundreds of people associated with the Dawa party, a Shiite group that carried out the attempt on Hussein's life on July 8, 1982. Charges against the two detained men were referred to...

Left-wing websites are reporting that Scott Ritter, a (1) former U.N. Weapons inspector, (2) one-time arrestee for soliciting an underage girl on the Internet, and (3) recipient of $400,000 (from an associate of Saddam Hussein) used to finance an anti-Iraq war film, recently stated at an anti-war "talk" that the Bush Administration has authorized plans to "bomb" Iran in June 2005. Not surprising, the evil/mischievous/mystical "neo-conservatives" are thrilled with this idea and see it as an opportunity to further promote their idealistic agenda democratic reform in the Middle East. Additionally, Ritter put forth that the United States "cooked" the election...

No words can do justice to the march of freedom underway in the Middle East and what it took to lead us there. Liberals will not want to hear this, but they know it’s true: What has happened in formerly Saddam’s Iraq and the Taliban’s Afghanistan—which, hopefully, could propel a flowering of freedom in a region more resistant than any other—is a tribute primarily to the efforts of one man: George W. Bush. For students of international relations, the elections in Iraq, capping those in Afghanistan in October, serve as a case study of how individuals, as opposed to larger...

Standing Guard

The results of the January 30 elections announced Sunday by the Independent Electoral Commission are another giant step towards building a free and democratic Iraq. Voter turnout, at almost 59 percent, was higher than an U.S. election since 1968. That in itself can be counted as a victory, though hardly surprising except to the chronically pessimistic. But the election results do not in themselves settle the question of who will take power in the transitional government. Handicapping is underway on who will take the top leadership positions. This is taking the form of a debate within the victorious United Iraqi...

The residents of a small Iraqi village have killed five insurgents who had attacked them for voting in last weekend's national elections. Several other insurgents were also wounded. The insurgents raided the village of al-Mudhiryah south of Baghdad after warning its inhabitants not to vote in the election. The villagers fought back, killing five of the insurgents and wounding eight others. The insurgents' cars were then set alight. Al-Mudhiryah's tribal sheikh says his people are sick of being threatened by Islamic extremists.

The week before the Jan. 30 Iraqi election, Sen. Ted Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, branded Iraq a hopeless quagmire. "Bush's Vietnam," Mr. Kennedy bellowed. "Quagmire." "Vietnam." "Bush." Indeed, the senator's dire sermon invoked his fundamentalist faith's demons old and demons au courant. Sen. Barbara Boxer of California joined the snake dance, adding her own poisonous sanctimony. China's Mao Tse-tung wrote that guerrillas are fish swimming in the sea of the people. Translation: It takes popular support to sustain a genuine guerrilla conflict. The Saddmist thugs and al Qaeda zealots who kill Iraqi civilians and coalition troops are reactionaries with scant political...

"Denial" – that popular psychobabble term – gained immense credibility in the last century as a result of "experts" who tried to convince the public that people who looked at a blue sky and called it pink were somehow not responsible for their perceptions. If one really believed that, they said, he or she must be "in denial" and therefore more worthy of "treatment" (or pity) than scorn. The idea had widespread implications. Simply excise the notion of accountability from the public imagination and anything was possible! Women who chose to destroy their in-utero infants could deny their acts by...

Lieutenant General James Mattis recently made comments at a forum in San Diego that are now pervading the news; he said, "It's fun to shoot some people... You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." So of course, liberals have now become frantic in their revolted outrage. As the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Nihad Awad, said, "We do not need...

In a sinister oil-for-murder plot, Saddam Hussein used the scandal-plagued U.N. oil-for-food program to set up the assassination of a prominent Iraqi exile politician, the slain man's family has charged. A mysterious George Tarkhaynan appears on an Iraqi Oil Ministry list, published by a Baghdad newspaper, of 270 politicians and businessmen who received sweetheart oil deals under the U.N. humanitarian program. Safia al-Souhail, a leading political figure in post-Saddam Iraq, told The Post she has evidence that Tarkhaynan is a former Beirut shirtmaker and once-trusted family friend who helped Iraq assassinate her father, anti-Saddam dissident Sheik Taleb al-Souhail al-Tamimi, in...

The following euphoria was brought to you by President George W. Bush. Remember the London Daily Mirror headline – "How Can 59,054,087 People Be So Dumb?" The New York Times, as recently as three weeks ago, predicted disaster for the Jan. 30 Iraqi elections: "The coming elections – long touted as the beginning of a new, democratic Iraq – are looking more and more like the beginning of that worst-case scenario. It's time to talk about postponing the elections."

In one of the grandest events in the history of the world, millions of Iraqis risked death on Sunday to vote in a free, democratic election. There were more than 100 attacks on polling stations by the "insurgents" (or "Islamic fascists," as authentic Americans call them). But the Iraqis voted – Shia, Sunnis, women and an estimated 2,000 dead felons in Washington state. Democrats haven't been this depressed since we captured Saddam Hussein.

Jimmy Carter told NBC's "Today" show in September that he was confident the elections would not take place. "I personally do not believe they're going to be ready for the election in January ... because there's no security there," he said.

Prime Minister Allawi eulogizes young man who hated the insurgency as a "real hero." By Gregg Zoroya USA Today Baghdad, Iraq — Policemen guarding a polling station in Baghdad's al-Mansour neighborhood Sunday recognized the suicide bomber immediately. The young man wore the same kind of Chinese-made high-top tennis shoes, leather jacket and red head scarf as an attacker at another site that same day. Fourteen-year police veteran Abdul Amir al-Shuwayli, 29, acted without hesitation. The bomber was steps away from joining a line of voters heading into the Al-Zahour Primary School when Shuwayli moved toward him, Police Capt. Firaz Mohammed...

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world. A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in...

It was actually difficult to find this DUmmie THREAD titled, “Guess WHO is behind the "72% turnout" bullshit?” Why? Because as columnist Michelle Malkin has noted, there is VERY LITTLE comment on the Iraq elections in the Leftwing Blogosphere. The Lefties just DON’T KNOW how to handle the enthusiasm of the Iraqis participating in their elections. This goes totally against DUmmie theology in which the U.S.A. are the oppressive occupiers and the terrorists are the freedom fighters. Blowhard Ed Schultz yesterday got all worked up on his radio show slamming conservative commentators for “unfairly” accusing many liberals of not...

It is difficult to imagine how anyone could not celebrate the first free Iraqi election in over 50 years. Even France, which vehemently opposed the United States’ liberation of Iraq, set its differences aside to praise the people of Iraq for their strength and bravery as they take this first step toward true freedom. However, there are people in this world who are not celebrating this great event. No, I am not talking about the usual folks we know oppose freedom not just in Iraq, but across the globe, such as North Korea’s Kim Jung Il, Osama Bin Laden, and...

   TCS  The news from Iraq is spectacularly good: local authorities estimate almost 75 percent of the electorate has voted. This is a triumph for every Iraqi, for America , for the Muslim world -- indeed, for the whole world. But it is a particular victory for an exceedingly small group in Washington : those who maintained confidence in the appeal of democracy, in the commonsense and intelligence of the Iraqis, and in the correctness of the path taken by President George W. Bush to Baghdad and beyond.  As stated, the group of non-Iraqis in America entitled to exult...