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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...

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>