Posted on 10/15/2005 12:07:24 PM PDT by freedom44
BAGHDAD - Iraq’s deeply divided Shias, Sunnis and Kurds voted under heavy guard on Saturday to decide the fate of a new constitution aimed at establishing democracy after more than two decades of Saddam Hussein’s repressive rule.
A day that US and Iraqi leaders feared could turn bloody turned out to be the most peaceful in months.
Insurgents attacked five of Baghdad’s 1,200 polling stations with shootings and bombs, wounding seven voters. But the only deaths were those of three Iraqi soldiers in a roadside bomb far from a polling site, and there were no major attacks reported as US and Iraqi forces clamped down with major security measures around balloting sites.
The United States hopes the constitution will be approved so Iraqis can form a permanent, representative government and secure the country so Washington can start withdrawing its 150,000 troops.
In the south, Shia women in head-to-toe veils and men emerged from the poll stations flashing victory signs with fingers stained with purple ink, apparently responding in mass to the call by their top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, to support the charter.
“Once the constitution is stable, the country will be stable,” Rajaa Mohammed Abbas, a 35-year-old Shia woman, said after voting “yes” in the southern city of Karbala, where crowds of people marched after casting ballots, chanting “yes, yes to the constitution.”
But in Sunni areas in Baghdad and several key heavily Sunni provinces, a surprisingly high turnout in some areas seemed to consist largely of Iraqis voting “no” because of fears the new constitution would mean setting in stone the Shia domination they fear.
The Sunni Arab turnout was a dramatic change from January parliamentary election, which most Sunnis boycotted. Now they were eager to cast ballots, which could make the race tighter than expected.
“This is all wrong. I said ’no’ to a constitution written by the Americans,” said Jilan Shaker, 22, a laborer who showed up at a polling station in Baghdad’s Azamiyah district polling station in shorts and plastic sandals.
In the crucial northern city of Mosul, there was a constant flow of voters all day long into a kindergarten in a Sunni Arab neighborhood: men and women, dressed at their best in suits and ties or neatly pressed veils, many carrying young children in holiday clothes.
A top UN official told The Associated Press that turnout was very high in the predominantly Shia Muslim south but low in the mostly Sunni Arab western province of Anbar, where insurgents are active. Carina Perelli, director of the Electoral Assistance Division of the United Nations, also said voter turnout was very steady in many other mostly Sunni regions.
Voters at the country’s 6,100 polling stations marked their paper ballot “yes” or “no” under one question, written in Arabic and Kurdish: “Do you agree on the permanent constitution project?” After placing the ballots in the plastic boxes, the Iraqis had the forefinger of their right hands marked with violet ink.
A few Sunni leaders called for a “yes” vote after last-minute changes were made in the draft, but most urged their voters to oppose.
When polls closed at 5 p.m., celebratory gunfire was heard in Baghdad. Families handed out sweets to passers-by in the street ahead of the end of the day’s Ramadan fast about an hour later.
Vote counting began immediately. In Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, a handful of men sat around long tables with lanterns, putting “yes” votes in one pile and “no” votes in another.
Baqouba turnout is key because the city is in a province that is majority Sunni but has sizable Shia and Kurdish communities.
There are four provinces where Sunni Arab opponents are hoping to make that threshold: Anbar, Ninevah, Salahuddin and Diyala, all with Sunni majorities. But all of those except Anbar also have significant Shia and Kurdish populations mixed in who the opponents must outweigh to reach two-thirds.
So competition was at its fiercest in those areas, with all sides drumming out voters.
“The government can’t just sew together an outfit and dress the people up by force. We do not see ourselves or see our future in this draft,” said Gazwan Abdul Sattar, 27-year-old Sunni teacher in Mosul after voting “no” in Nivevah’s capital, Mosul.
But in a nearby mostly Kurdish neighborhood of the city, Bahar Saleh gave her support to the constitution. “This constitution will at last give the Kurds their lost rights,” the 34-year-old housewife said, coming from the polls with the red-and-green Kurdish flag wrapped around her body.
In Salahuddin province, just north of Baghdad, turnout may have been as high as 75 percent, local election officials said. In the Sunni Arab town of Tikrit - Saddam’s birthplace, hundreds rushed to the polls in the last minute to make the closing of polls and get home in time for the breaking of the fast.
But turnout also appeared high in mainly Shia towns and districts elsewhere in the province.
In Baghdad, American troops in Humvees rattled down Baghdad streets in patrols, while Iraqi soldiers and police ringed polling stations at schools and other public buildings protected by concrete barriers and barbed wire. Iraqi soldiers armed with heavy machine guns looked over polling sites from nearby rooftops. US troops in tanks and armored vehicles stood not far away as helicopters hovered overhead. Driving was banned to stop suicide car bombings by Sunni-led insurgents determined to wreck the vote.
“Today, I came to vote because I am tired of terrorists, and I want the country to be safe again,” said Zeinab Sahib, a 30-year-old mother of three, one of the first voters at a school in the mainly Shia neighborhood of Karrada in Baghdad. “This constitution means unity and hope.”
I think it was a big mistake to dye the index finger. The next finger over would have sent a stronger message to the terrorists and naysayers. Why do we keep making these blunders?
It wouldn't surprise me if that ink wears off before coalition forces have a chance to neutralize every eligible voter who doesn't have a purple finger. If it does, it's probably supplied through a no-bid contract.
Well, I understand your point---there is certainly some validity there---but I think you are overly harsh on yourself and other Americans and also underestimating the power and versatility of the worldwide organized hard left (WOHL).
"It takes no courage to stand up for what's right over here in the U.S., it should be a natural but yet we allow ourselves to be browbeaten by the ACLU and other idiots, we are willfully allowing them to degrade our society and take away our rights--why? Lack of courage and conviction. period. Pansies in other words."
First of all, the WOHL (which includes the ACLU) is organized on a worldwide basis. True, the organization is very loose in many ways---but it's there. Secondly, their techniques are extremely sophisticated.
One of their primary goals is to strip away people's motivation to oppose them. There is a multidimensional strategy in this record. Personally, you experience it as, "Oh, what's the use." You are not aware of the way different messages from different sources are adding up to discourage you---but the WOHL is.
The techniques of the WHL also sometimes include blackmail and murder---even here in the US.
(Please read this book: Hillary’s Secret War, The Clinton Conspiracy to Muzzle Internet Journalists, by Richard Poe, WND Books, 2004.)
"It seems that all our citizens with true courage, conviction and guts are in Iraq and Afghanistan--or are rotating back to the bases."
I'm sure you realize this is an exaggeration. These troops are part of us---the best of us, in many respects,but still Americans, like we are. The vast Republican volunteer effort to elect George Bush in 2004 was one example of ordinary people acting with energy and purpose to do something to preserve our freedom.
Hi, OhioWfan, I didn't see your post until now, but you are right. It's actually insulting, the minimal coverage they've given the successful vote. They only focus on the negative (and now they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel to find such negatives, IMO!)
Had it been a Dem successfully bringing democracy to a former dictatorship ... the mind reels.
They are taking this monumental, earth moving event, and turning it into a ho-hum event with their lack of coverage.
My only hope is that the American people are paying enough attention to see that the progress being made in Iraq is stunning, and that the media's near black out of the event will be seen for what it really is..........a hatred of this President that has no limits.
You are absolutely right.
I made it a point to be home in front of the t.v for the Sunday news shows. I was late--half an hour into Fox News Sunday, just in time for the panel, and then caught the last half-hour of MTP.
I was expecting a lot of coverage of the Iraq vote. Instead I was treated to a lot of inside-the-beltway speculation on Judith Miller and Karl Rove (honestly, do people outside Washington care about this? No, they don't, not unless the media hypes it), and then, on MTP,. an interview with Louis Freeh (which was very interesting).
But still... there is a major event going on, they can devote endless ink/air time to bad news, but when there's good news going on? You have to search for it.
I do think that with email, and better communications, that those on the front lines can communicate with those back home. Thank Goodness! Otherwise, everyone would be completely demoralized.
Anyway, all the best to you and yours, OhioWfan. :)
"After placing the ballots in the plastic boxes, the Iraqis had the forefinger of their right hands marked with violet ink."
I almsot thought they were going to say that thier forfingers were cut off.
Sorry.
:)
"... saw that and wondered when in his 30 years of life did he remember it safe ?"
I imagine members of the Nazi Party were feeling the same way in 1946.
More liberal insanity:
I caught a few minutes on the radio on NPR of the Diane Reem show( I can't stand that leftist, lying B*tch!). She asked the interviewed person ( who had been in Iraq for these voting days),,,(get ready!) " I heaard that only men voted in this Constitutional election!" The guy responds, "Oh, no , not at all. The women were voting too!" She then says,
"Oh, so SOME women did vote, well, that's good."
The libs are just disgusting!
did I say Daschle is very concerned?
What HE said!!!
"VIVA LA DEMOCRACY!!! "The PEOPLE united, will always VOTE for FREEDOM!" Sorry liberals, you are on the wrong side of the aisle today. There is nothing your silly protests can do to stop the tsunami sized movement of democracy in the middle east. The people don't want your socialist tyrants anymore. We are tired of oppression and WE WANT FREEDOM!"
Iraqikurd,
TODAY is YOUR day for justice. I have been thinking all week about your parents murder.
Link:
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/18/D8DAJL488.html
"Saddam was in high spirits and "very optimistic" on the eve of the start of his trial, al-Duleimi said.
"I have just left him five minutes ago. His morale is very, very, very high and he is very optimistic and confident of his innocence, although the court is ... unjust," al-Duleimi said.
If convicted, Saddam and his co-defendants could face the death penalty, but they could appeal before another chamber of the special tribunal set up to try the former leader and officials from his ousted regime.
Court officials have said they are trying Saddam on the Dujail massacre first because it was the easiest and quickest case to put together. Other cases they are investigating _ including a crackdown on the Kurds that killed an estimated 180,000 people _ involve much larger numbers of victims, more witnesses and more documentation.
Saddam and his co-defendants are expected to hear the charges against them during Wednesday's hearing.
An American adviser to Saddam's defense team said Tuesday the former dictator's rights were violated after his capture."
BWA HA HA HA he he he snicker snicker barf gag....
I will be watching the news today Jesse, and thinking of your family. Thanks for putting a little terrorized boy and his parents into my mind as I think of this man and his crimes. I look at my own sons and wonder how their lives would be if they were to watch my husband and I brutally murdered by socialist thugs.
You are in my prayers!
Jenny
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.