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Locked on 01/30/2005 6:57:11 AM PST by Lead Moderator, reason:
Thread two: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1331855/posts |
Posted on 01/29/2005 4:03:31 PM PST by Dog
It is now 3 am in Iraq the polls will be opening in the next few hours as the world watches and hold's it breath. Iraq is about to undertake a historic vote.
Lets wish them well....... please post all comments and election photos to this thread.
I don't remember any, but that does not say much.
Afganistan's historical leadup days and election day October 9, 2004 in pictures
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1236952/posts?page=70
Great pictures, brigette. Look at the faces of the man holding up their registrations. There is the "Arab street". Happy, hopeful. Not those rabid dogs we usually are treated to.
I am getting ready to crash, so I will let you post all the great pictures that are coming out from Yahoo News. There will be a lot more released during these early morning hours here in the USA.
Good nite Ernest.
"An Iraqi police officer checks a donkey, pulling a disabled man on a cart, before allowing it to enter a polling station in the country's second largest city of Basra, January 30, 2005."
Good morning! Amazing photos on a history-making day for the Iraqi people. I'm so happy to see the lines of Iraqis finally being able to have their voices heard. Let Freedom Ring!
I believe I am going to beat you to bed. Good night. See you in a few.
Good morning all. This looks very encouraging, long lines, determination of the Iraqi's. 8 homicide bombers I've read.
I read a report that said not a lot of Sunni turnout? If so, they've cut off their own noses, choosing to not vote does not invalidate an election.
Is there any other major news from overnight that I've missed while getting my beauty zzzzzzz's?
Denny Crane: "I want two things. First God and then Fox News."
OK, you got it....We had a disrupter toward the start of the thread but the lead moderator did him in and gave him a nasty comment!
Freedom something!
Will check back later...around noon my time....
A good recap on the efforts the Iraqi's made to get out and vote!:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqis danced and clapped with joy Sunday as they voted in their country's first free election in a half-century, defying insurgents who launched deadly suicide bombings and mortar strikes at polling stations. The attacks killed 29 people, including four policemen and two Iraqi soldiers.
After a slow start, men and women in flowing black abayas — often holding babies — formed long lines, although there were pockets of Iraq (news - web sites) where the streets and polling stations were deserted. Voters prohibited from using private cars walked, hitched rides on military buses and trucks, and some even carried the elderly in their arms, as officials said turnout appeared higher than expected.
Casting his vote, Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi called it "the first time the Iraqis will determine their destiny."
Turnout was brisk in Shiite Muslim and mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhoods. Even in the small town of Askan in the so-called "triangle of death" south of Baghdad, 20 people waited in line at each of several polling centers. More walked toward the polls.
"This is democracy," said Karfia Abbasi, holding up a thumb stained with purple ink to prove she had voted.
Rumors of impending violence were rife. When an unexplained boom sounded near one Baghdad voting station, some women put their hands to their mouths and whispered prayers. Others continued walking calmly to the voting stations. Several shouted in unison: "We have no fear."
"Am I scared? Of course I'm not scared. This is my country," said 50-year-old Fathiya Mohammed, wearing a head-to-toe abaya.
At one polling place in Baghdad, soldiers and voters joined hands in a dance, and in Baqouba, voters jumped and clapped to celebrate the historic day. At another, an Iraqi policeman in a black ski mask tucked his assault rifle under one arm and took the hand of an elderly blind woman, guiding her to the polls.
In Ramadi, U.S. troops coaxed voters with loudspeakers, preaching the importance of every ballot.
The election is a major test of President Bush (news - web sites)'s goal of promoting democracy in the Middle East. If successful, it also could hasten the day when the United States brings home its 150,000 troops. More than 1,400 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, including a U.S. Marine killed in combat Sunday in Iraq's restive Anbar province. No details were released on the latest death.
Security was tight. About 300,000 Iraqi and American troops were on the streets and on standby to protect voters, who entered polling stations under loops of razor wire and the watchful eye of rooftop sharpshooters.
Private cars were mostly banned from the streets, forcing suicide bombers to strap explosives to their bodies and carry out attacks on foot.
In a potentially troublesome sign, the polls at first were deserted in mostly Sunni cities like Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra around Baghdad, and in the restive, heavily Sunni northern city of Mosul.
By midday, however, several dozen people were voting in Samarra and several hundred people — mostly Kurds — were voting on Mosul's eastern side, witnesses said.
Yet in Baghdad's mainly Sunni Arab area of Azamiyah, the neighborhood's four polling centers did not open, residents said.
A low Sunni turnout could undermine the new government and worsen tensions among the country's ethnic, religious and cultural groups.
The governor of the mostly Sunni province of Salaheddin, Hamad Hmoud Shagti, went on the radio to lobby for a higher turnout. "This is a chance for you as Iraqis to assure your and your children's future," he said.
Shiite Muslims, estimated at 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people, were expected to turn out in large numbers, encouraged by clerics who hope their community will gain power after generations of oppression by the Sunni minority.
A ticket endorsed by the country's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is expected to fare best among the 111 candidate lists. However, no faction is expected to win an outright majority, meaning possibly weeks of political deal-making before a new prime minister is chosen.
The elections will also give Kurds a chance to gain more influence in Iraq after long years of marginalization under the Baath Party that ruled the country for 34 years.
"This proves that we are now free," said Akar Azad, 19, who came to the polls with his wife Serwin Suker and sister Bigat.
Final results of the election will not be known for seven to 10 days, but a preliminary tally could come as early as late Sunday.
One U.S.-funded election observer said early reports pointed to smoother-than-expected voting, despite the violence.
"We're hearing there has been fairly robust turnout in certain areas," said Sam Patten, a member of the Baghdad team of the International Republican Institute.
The chief U.N. adviser to Iraq's election commission, Carlos Valenzuela, also said turnout seemed to be good in most places.
"These attacks have not stopped the operations," Valenzuela said.
Asked if reports of better-than-expected turnout in areas where Sunni and Shiite Muslims live together indicated that a Sunni cleric boycott effort had failed, one of the main groups pushing the boycott seemed to soften its stance.
"The association's call for a boycott of the election was not a fatwa (religious edict), but only a statement," said Association of Muslim Scholars spokesman Omar Ragheb. "It was never a question of something religiously prohibited or permitted."
In the most deadly attack Sunday, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a polling station in western Baghdad, killing himself, three policemen and a civilian, officials said. Witness Faleh Hussein said the bomber approached a line of voters and detonated an explosives belt.
In a second suicide attack at a polling station, a bomber blew up himself, one policeman and two Iraqi soldiers. In a third suicide attack at a school in western Baghdad, three people and the bomber died, police said.
And in a fourth, at another school in eastern Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed himself and at least three others. Another four people died in other suicide attacks.
Three people were killed when mortars landed near a polling station in Sadr City, the heart of Baghdad's Shiite Muslim community. In addition, two people were killed when a mortar round hit a home in Amel, and a policeman died in a mortar attack on a polling station in Khan al-Mahawil south of Baghdad.
A suicide bomber blew himself up near the home of Iraq's justice minister, an apparent assassination attempt. The minister was not home but the attack killed one person, an Interior Ministry official said.
Good Morning(From wa po)--
In restive Mosul in the north, American troops and Iraqi soldiers roamed the streets, using loudspeakers to announce the locations of polling sites and urging people to vote. Streets were deserted.
When an unexplained boom sounded near one Baghdad voting station, some women put their hands to their mouths and whispered prayers. Others continued walking calmly to the voting stations. Several shouted in unison: "We have no fear."
An election day ban on most private cars forced relatives and even police to help elderly people to the polls. Some were carried in the arms of relatives, or taken in push cars. At one polling place in eastern Baghdad, an Iraqi policeman in a black ski mask tucked his assault rifle under one arm and guided the hand of an elderly blind woman, helping her to the polls.
They don't appear to be deterring the voters at all.
I never thought they would.
Freedom is the enemy of terrorism.
If anyone knows the real story on Chalabi, I wish they'd let me know. As I recall, I really liked him when I first heard of him (possibly because I also heard our State Dept didn't want him having any power!). Then there were those charges about ties to Iran, and another story about his son. Then I saw (perhaps in the WSJ) that it was our State Dept and/or CIA that had engineered/contributed to false charges against him -- they felt he didn't show them the proper respect or something.
Anyway, that's how I recall what little I know. Please add.
What's CLG?
Iraqi women wait in the line to enter a polling station in Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, Sunday, Jan. 30, 2005. Iraqis turned out to vote Sunday in their country's first free election in a half-century as insurgents made good on threats of violence.....
HAHAHAHA...frustrated, you creeps?
They're blasting the heck out of us. And hitting sand.
(We're in a hardened building, anyway.)
OK, there go our Howitzers. Gettin' noisy out there...get 'em, guys!!
Be safe w/ all that action around you.
*/scarasm off
Historical "Iraqi Election~~~~~live thread...all of us bump!
GO IRAQ!
FReedom never sleeps!
It's on the march!
Terrorists, Ted Kennedy and MSN beware!
Longer than the people in Ohio that dems decried so loudly.
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