OR:
Posted on 12/06/2004 6:25:14 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's interim president told George W. Bush at the White House Monday that the ``armies of darkness'' would not stop Iraqis voting next month, even though there is no let up in insurgents' efforts to wreck the election.
The U.S. president renewed his vow, backed by an increase in American troop numbers in Iraq, to see the Jan. 30 vote succeed in the face of violence and discontent coming mainly from the Sunni Arab minority which dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
Bush urged Iraqis to brave the violence and cast a ballot.
``The capacity of these killers to stop an election would send a wrong signal to the world and send a wrong signal to the Iraqi people themselves,'' Bush said after three U.S. deaths took the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq to two short of 1,000.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Kuwait he had agreed to stay in his job and hoped U.S. troops would pull out of Iraq during the Bush administration's second four-year term.
``They will stay as long as they are needed, not a day longer,'' he told reporters.
As the powerful, mainly Sunni tribe led by Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar's uncle rallied behind an electoral bloc formed by leaders of the long oppressed Shi'ite majority, Yawar urged people not to identify the insurgency with the Sunni cause.
Speaking after a particularly bloody few days in which more than 70 people have been killed, Yawar said: ``Right now, we're faced with the armies of darkness, who have no objective but to undermine the political process and incite civil war in Iraq.
``But I want to assure the whole world that this will never, ever happen... After all these sacrifices, there's no way on earth that we will let it go in vain,'' said Yawar, who holds a largely figurehead position in the administration set up in June to take over responsibility from the U.S.-led occupation forces.
Next month's vote, Iraq's first taste of democracy in decades, is to elect a national assembly that will oversee the writing of a new constitution and appoint a new government.
With insecurity profound in Sunni areas of Iraq, including Baghdad, many leaders of the 20 percent Sunni Arab community in the north and west have called for a poll delay or even a boycott.
Bush, who is boosting U.S. troop numbers by about 10 percent to 150,000 for the election, urged Iraqis to brave the risks of being killed by insurgents bent on disrupting the vote:
``You can never guarantee 100 percent security. But the Iraqi people have the chance to say to the world, 'We choose democracy over terrorism','' said Bush, for whom an elected Iraqi government capable of defending itself is a prerequisite for declaring the invasion a success and bringing the troops home.
Shi'ite Arabs, who dominate in the south and account for 60 percent of the population, are keen to vote to consolidate their advantage. The mostly Sunni Kurds, some 10 to 15 percent of Iraqis, already have broad autonomy in their northern mountains.
SHI'ITE COALITION
Iraq's main Shi'ite parties, backed by the northern Shamar tribe led by Yawar's uncle as well as some Shi'ite Kurds and Turkmen, have sealed an electoral alliance.
The list of candidates, called the United Iraqi Alliance, is approved by Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
``This is a historic moment,'' Hussain al-Shahristani, a Saddam-era dissident who helped draw up the list, told Reuters.
``This is the birth of a new, democratic and just Iraq.''
Documents legalizing the list, comprising about 20 political groups, movements and parties, should be presented to Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission Tuesday, Shahristani said.
The two main parties on the slate are the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and Dawa.
It also includes the Iraqi National Congress, headed by former U.S. ally Ahmad Chalabi, and the National Democratic Party.
Moqtada al-Sadr, the rebellious Shi'ite cleric who has led two uprisings against U.S. forces in southern Iraq this year, will also have representatives on the slate. The cleric himself and his top religious aides are not on it, however.
Voter registration has been severely hampered in many Sunni areas, including the city of Falluja. Tens of thousands of its residents cannot return home, a month after U.S. troops stormed their city to destroy entrenched guerrilla groups. Many are suffering from severe cold and health problems in tent camps.
Heh... you know which movie poster's gettin' posted here soon...
I was just getting ready when I saw the title. :)
...so shop smart...
...shop S-Mart...
YA GOT THAT?
Congressman Billybob
Groovy.
To the pit with the sons of whores!
Nobody's pinged this guy yet?
Now what where those magic words again????
"Good, Bad, either way, I'm the one holding the shotgun"
Klattu Ferata N... Nic... NACHOO!
The phrase "Primitive Screwheads" comes to mind.
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