thedrifter
12-15-05, 10:01 AM
December 15, 2005
Election Day in Iraq
The first person to vote in Babylon in the Iraqi parliamentary election was 65-year-old Jasim Hameed, who is wheelchair-bound. Hameed had arrived at the polling place a half hour before it opened at 7:00 a.m. because he wanted to make a statement with his vote.
"I'm here at this early hour because I want to challenge the terrorists who want to kill the democratic process in Iraq and I want to encourage the healthy people to vote," Mr. Hameed said.
Because Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaida in Iraq, threatened to kill those who cast ballots, Mr. Hamid was risking his life.
In a communique issued on election eve, Mr. Zarqawi vowed to "ruin the democratic wedding of heresy and immorality."
The threats were not idle. "The spokesman of the police command in Babylon...stated that the security forces in Jurf al Sakhar were able to arrest two brothers transporting 72 mines and IEDs and they confessed they were about near and on the ways leading to the polling stations to prevent the people from voting," said "A.T.," an Iraqi correspondent for Pajamas media, who was on the scene.
Despite the threats, voter turnout was high. The early estimate is 63 percent. That's higher than it had been for the election of an interim parliament in January or for the referendum on the constitution in October, and higher than it usually is for U.S. presidential elections.
Turnout was higher chiefly because of a massive turnout among Sunni Muslims, most of whom had boycotted the first two elections.
"It's the first time I have tasted the freedom to express my view," Asmeal Nouri, 60, a Sunni Arab living in Kirkuk, told a reporter for Reuters.
And despite the threats, the mood of Iraqi voters was festive, said W. Thomas Smith, a former Marine and paratrooper embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq, wrote in National Review Online.
"Adults are cheering, clapping hands, beating drums, singing, dancing and waving at passing U.S. and Iraqi military vehicles," he said.
The high turnout among Sunnis was a repudiation of al Qaida. And the fact that the voting preceded with very few incidents was the clearest indication yet of the terror group’s diminishing effectiveness.
At several polling places in al Anbar province, security against al Qaida was provided by Sunni militias once allied with the terror group, a split in the "insurgency" too wide for even our news media to ignore.
Web logger Bill Roggio, embedded with the U.S. Marines, reported turnout was high in the "Wild West" town of Barwana, from which al Qaida had been evicted only weeks ago.
"The poll site sits right beneath the now destroyed Barwana bridge, where Zarqawi terrorists routinely executed residents for not conforming to their perverse interpretation of Islam," Mr. Roggio said. "Barwana, once part of Zarqawi's self declared 'Islamic Republic of Iraq,' is now the scene of al Qaida's greatest nightmare."
Ellie
Election Day in Iraq
The first person to vote in Babylon in the Iraqi parliamentary election was 65-year-old Jasim Hameed, who is wheelchair-bound. Hameed had arrived at the polling place a half hour before it opened at 7:00 a.m. because he wanted to make a statement with his vote.
"I'm here at this early hour because I want to challenge the terrorists who want to kill the democratic process in Iraq and I want to encourage the healthy people to vote," Mr. Hameed said.
Because Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaida in Iraq, threatened to kill those who cast ballots, Mr. Hamid was risking his life.
In a communique issued on election eve, Mr. Zarqawi vowed to "ruin the democratic wedding of heresy and immorality."
The threats were not idle. "The spokesman of the police command in Babylon...stated that the security forces in Jurf al Sakhar were able to arrest two brothers transporting 72 mines and IEDs and they confessed they were about near and on the ways leading to the polling stations to prevent the people from voting," said "A.T.," an Iraqi correspondent for Pajamas media, who was on the scene.
Despite the threats, voter turnout was high. The early estimate is 63 percent. That's higher than it had been for the election of an interim parliament in January or for the referendum on the constitution in October, and higher than it usually is for U.S. presidential elections.
Turnout was higher chiefly because of a massive turnout among Sunni Muslims, most of whom had boycotted the first two elections.
"It's the first time I have tasted the freedom to express my view," Asmeal Nouri, 60, a Sunni Arab living in Kirkuk, told a reporter for Reuters.
And despite the threats, the mood of Iraqi voters was festive, said W. Thomas Smith, a former Marine and paratrooper embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq, wrote in National Review Online.
"Adults are cheering, clapping hands, beating drums, singing, dancing and waving at passing U.S. and Iraqi military vehicles," he said.
The high turnout among Sunnis was a repudiation of al Qaida. And the fact that the voting preceded with very few incidents was the clearest indication yet of the terror group’s diminishing effectiveness.
At several polling places in al Anbar province, security against al Qaida was provided by Sunni militias once allied with the terror group, a split in the "insurgency" too wide for even our news media to ignore.
Web logger Bill Roggio, embedded with the U.S. Marines, reported turnout was high in the "Wild West" town of Barwana, from which al Qaida had been evicted only weeks ago.
"The poll site sits right beneath the now destroyed Barwana bridge, where Zarqawi terrorists routinely executed residents for not conforming to their perverse interpretation of Islam," Mr. Roggio said. "Barwana, once part of Zarqawi's self declared 'Islamic Republic of Iraq,' is now the scene of al Qaida's greatest nightmare."
Ellie