IPS appears to be an established news agency with a Third World emphasis. It's not known what their biases are, if any.

Needless to say, this story has received attention from sites like DemocraticUnderground.

However, there are few other news sources discussing this story.

The Washington Post devotes just fourteen words to it in the story “Iraqis defy insurgency”: “Despite rumors that food rations would be taken away if residents failed to vote…”

And, from a Washington Post special correspondent:

(Note that that's from Tikrit, while the IPS report mentions voters in Baghdad.)

This story not directly related to the Iraq vote gives a clue to why this rumor (if it was indeed just a rumor) could be believed: …All Iraqis were required to vote during Saddam Hussein's reign. Embassy officials told the students that Iraqis who refused to vote for Saddam lost their jobs or food rations…

In a statement posted on an Islamic Web site, the Iraqi militant group Ansar al-Islam claimed responsibility for Sunday´s downing the plane north of Baghdad. The statement´s authenticity could not be immediately confirmed.

The group claimed its fighters tracked the aircraft, “which was flying at a low altitude, and fired an anti-tank missile at it.´´

The plane went down hours after polls closed in Iraq while flying from Baghdad to the town of Balad.

“Thanks be to God, the plane was downed and a huge fire and black clouds of smoke were seen rising from the location of the crash,´´ said the statement posted Sunday.

A spokesman for Britain´s Ministry of Defense said he could not confirm Ansar al-Islam´s claim. “People on the ground are investigating,´´ he said on condition of anonymity.

Established after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Ansar al-Islam is one of Iraq´s older extremist groups and it has been linked to al-Qaida.

More…

Also:

Arab TV channel Al-Jazeera aired a video on Monday that showed insurgents walking amid the wreckage of an airplane that was said to be that of a British C-130 that crashed in Iraq Sunday.

From The Australian :

Iraqi shopkeepers in western Sydney said yesterday their support for the Iraqi election was endangering their lives after four people were injured in a shooting provoked by the poll.

Some community leaders blamed fundamentalists sympathetic to al-Qa'ida for the attack.

One man is in a serious condition in Westmead Hospital and three others suffered ricochet wounds during the shooting on Sunday night.

More than 100 people were involved in the brawl on Auburn's main street, damaging shops and two cars.

They gave rather better than they got, till someone brought out a shotgun.

Iraqi community leader and voter Kamil Alhamid said the attackers were men from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Lebanon, but not Iraq.

Ahl Albait secretary Mr Alhamid said the assailants were fundamentalists sympathetic to al-Qa'ida and the terrorist group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Sunday's attack followed a protest outside Auburn's polling booth on Saturday that halted voting for an hour. The protesters yelled anti-Shi'ite slogans at voters, took their photos and threatened them.

Sheik Naji said the protesters shouted “vote and die” at the voters, exactly the same threat shouted at voters in Iraq.

See previous post.

Abdul Auglah said he was upset the violence was happening in Australia.

Speaking as an Australian, so am I. Rather more than merely “upset” though, and no doubt the AFP (Australian Federal Police) and ASIO (the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) will be doing something about it soon-ish.

Perhaps this should be in the Politics section, but as all the perpetrators used it as an excuse to criticise the UK's Iraq policies, it fits here.

From The Australian :

When a sheet of paper covered in doodles was found on Tony Blair's desk at the Davos World Economic Forum, handwriting experts delighted in analysing it, concluding the Prime Minister was stressed and under pressure.

Experts who examined the tangle of boxes, circles, loops and notes on debt and trade variously described Mr Blair as “struggling to concentrate” or “not a natural leader” and “stressed and tense”.

But there was a problem.

The doodles, it later transpired, were nothing to do with Mr Blair but were the work of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who shared a table with Mr Blair at the summit.

“Somebody from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has said that the notes are from Bill Gates rather than from Tony Blair,” a spokesman from Mr Blair's Downing Street office said today.

“We were surprised nobody bothered to ask us about this when the paper was made public last week because the writing is obviously not the prime minister's,” he added.

Psychologists and graphologists drafted in by a number of British newspapers even noted how “Blair's” handwriting had changed for the worse since he first won election as British Prime Minister in 1997.

“We look forward to psychologists reassessing their conclusions of how these characteristics ascribed to the Prime Minister equally apply to Mr Gates,” the Downing Street spokesman said.

See (for example) articles by the Times, the Evening Standard, and the Independent.

But no-one does a retraction with more grace than The Times.

09:24 High Turnout in Baghdad Points to Early Success

10:24 Amid Attacks, a Party Atmosphere on Baghdad's Closed Streets

18:26 Insurgent Attacks in Baghdad and Elsewhere Kill at Least 24

20:50 Attacks in Baghdad and Elsewhere Reportedly Kill Several Dozen

The article itself didn't change over the period, just the Headline the NYT editors chose to put on it.

Hat Tip Ann Althouse.

The Iraqi elections are over and, by all accounts, ended reasonably successfully. While I refused to engage in the kind of calculus of killing that some had set into prior to the voting (discussions of how many people have to die for us to consider it an “unsuccessful” election), I will be quite frank and say that based on what I heard while I was in DC for the inauguration that the US was expecting Zarqawi or “Z-Man” as they call him in military circles (a reference, or so I understand it, to a transvestite from a 1970s X-rated film) to hit them with everything he had. As in, people were talking quite seriously about between 500 to a 1,000 casualties and this was just in defense circles.

When Brigadier General Erv Lessel was talking about a spectacular terrorist attack on the elections just 6 days ago, he was talking about 9/11 or equivalent level attacks. It is for that reason that I think it's best that we take the time to fully appreciate what we were going up against here so we can understand the full magnitude of what has just been accomplished.

• To Begin With… Election Aftermath
• What Didn't Go Wrong
• Recent Changes in the Insurgency
• Whither Zarqawi (and his Organization) Now?
• Oh, and on the “Good” Professor Cole…

Note: Also available at the “Opinion Journal” and Chrenkoff. Big thanks to James Taranto and Joe Katzman for their support, and to the growing band of readers and fellow bloggers who send suggestions and spread the good news.

It happened. And they did it.

In scenes unimaginable only two years ago - and scorned as impossible, undesirable and impractical for months - millions of ordinary Iraqi men and women braved terrorist violence and came out to vote for their future government (for a brief election fact file see here).

• The Election
  
• Society
  
• Economy
  
• Reconstruction
  
• Humanitarian Aid
  
• The Coalition Troops
  
• Security

Update to this story

A British C-130 military transport plane crashed Sunday north of Baghdad, scattering wreckage over a large area, officials said. At least 10 troops were killed, Britain's Press Association new agency said.

The crash occurred at around 5:25 p.m. about 20 miles northwest of Baghdad, said a spokesman for the British Ministry of Defense .

Press Association quoted unidentified military sources saying the death toll was “around 10” and it was “highly unlikely” to be more than 15. A Ministry of Defense spokesman said late Sunday that military officials were still trying to reach families of those involved.

This story reports “up to 15” dead.

Via AP:

WASHINGTON - The U.S. occupation authority in Iraq was unable to keep track of nearly $9 billion it transferred to government ministries, which lacked financial controls, security, communications and adequate staff, an inspector general has found.

The U.S. officials relied on Iraqi audit agencies to account for the funds but those offices were not even functioning when the funds were transferred between October 2003 and June 2004, according to an audit by a special U.S. inspector general.

The findings were released Sunday by Stuart Bowen Jr., special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. Bowen issued several reports on the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the U.S. occupation government that ruled Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004

Read the whole thing.

The Iraq elections are just the first step on the road to democracy. Coming up:

• The 275-member transitional National Assembly will first choose a largely ceremonial president and two vice presidents. They, in turn, will pick a prime minister and a Cabinet that must be ratified by the assembly.

• The assembly, elected for an 11-month term, will draft a permanent constitution.

• Iraqis will hold a national referendum in October to accept or reject the constitution.

• If the document is approved, Iraqis will vote in December for a permanent government under the constitution.

• If the document is rejected, Iraqis will repeat the whole process, voting for a new transitional assembly to draft a new constitution.

[Soure: AP]

Text of the President's address:

Today the people of Iraq have spoken to the world, and the world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East.

In great numbers, and under great risk, Iraqis have shown their commitment to democracy. By participating in free elections, the Iraqi people have firmly rejected the anti-democratic ideology of the terrorists. They have refused to be intimidated by thugs and assassins. And they have demonstrated the kind of courage that is always the foundation of self-government.

Some Iraqis were killed while exercising their rights as citizens. We also mourn the American and British military personnel who lost their lives today. Their sacrifices were made in a vital cause of freedom, peace in a troubled region, and a more secure future for us all.

The Iraqi people, themselves, made this election a resounding success. Brave patriots stepped forward as candidates. Many citizens volunteered as poll workers. More than 100,000 Iraqi security force personnel guarded polling places and conducted operations against terrorist groups. One news account told of a voter who had lost a leg in a terror attack last year, and went to the polls today, despite threats of violence. He said, “I would have crawled here if I had to. I don't want terrorists to kill other Iraqis like they tried to kill me. Today I am voting for peace.”

Across Iraq today, men and women have taken rightful control of their country's destiny, and they have chosen a future of freedom and peace. In this process, Iraqis have had many friends at their side. The European Union and the United Nations gave important assistance in the election process. The American military and our diplomats, working with our coalition partners, have been skilled and relentless, and their sacrifices have helped to bring Iraqis to this day. The people of the United States have been patient and resolute, even in difficult days.

The commitment to a free Iraq now goes forward. This historic election begins the process of drafting and ratifying a new constitution, which will be the basis of a fully democratic Iraqi government. Terrorists and insurgents will continue to wage their war against democracy, and we will support the Iraqi people in their fight against them. We will continue training Iraqi security forces so this rising democracy can eventually take responsibility for its own security.

There's more distance to travel on the road to democracy. Yet Iraqis are proving they're equal to the challenge. On behalf of the American people, I congratulate the people of Iraq on this great and historic achievement.

Thank you very much.

Bloomberg reports that as many as 8 million voted in Iraq's election:

“The streets of Baghdad were not soaked with blood” said Farid Ayar, spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, at a Baghdad news conference broadcast by Cable News Network as polls closed. The commission said turnout was about 60 percent, down from an earlier estimate of 72 percent.

From California Yankee.

From Hammorabi:

Great day!

It is the birth of freedom and democracy in Iraq!

It is a great festival!

Today only we may announce the victory!

Today we hit back in the heart of the terrorists and the tyrants!

Today is the day in which the souls of our martyrs comforted!

Today those who were killed in Iraq or wounded among our friends from the USA and other allies, who helped us to reach this day, are with us again to inscribe their names with Gold for ever!

Today we challenged the killers and terrorists and foot on them with our shoes!

Many people walked long distances to vote in a most civilised way!

People asked for more time to enable them to vote!

One woman was crying because she can not reach the requested polling station to vote!

In many parts the police helped citizens to take them with their cars to the polling stations!

Read the whole thing…

Newsweek, once you get past the headline, has a fascinating article about a Saudi who survived his homicide bombing and provided information that lead to the capture of a number:

He wasn't supposed to live, and the way he tells the story today, this “suicide bomber” wasn't quite ready to die. Twenty-one-year-old Ahmed Abdullah al-Shayea had come to Iraq from Saudi Arabia to join the infamous terrorist known as Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi in a holy war against the American infidels. On Christmas morning, 2004, he got his first assignment, to park a tanker truck full of explosives near the high walls around the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad. He didn't know that four fellow terrorists in a Jeep Cherokee following a safe distance behind held the remote-control trigger. When they pushed it, an explosion thundered across the city, killing 10 Iraqi policemen. But al-Shayea, unlike scores of other bombers who've been vaporized beyond recognition, was blown through the windshield and, against all odds, survived.

Taken to a hospital with third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body, al-Shayea was thought to be just another bystander wounded in the blast. But when police got a tip the second week in January that men were willing to offer money to get him out, or kill him, the cops got interested. If terrorists wanted him, so did they. “Our intelligence agents kidnapped him from the hospital,” says Brig. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, deputy minister of the Interior for intelligence affairs. Speaking to NEWSWEEK at his heavily guarded headquarters in Baghdad last week, Kamal described the scene. Al-Shayea was brought into the office swathed in bandages and propped up on a makeshift seat without a back. A pillow was put on his lap to ease the pain of his burned arms. Then the interrogators began their questioning, threatening to hand al-Shayea to the Americans, and at one point putting him on the phone with his father in Saudi Arabia.

[. . .]

General Kamal says information supplied by al-Shayea helped Coalition forces round up several of Zarqawi's key lieutenants within a matter of days.

From California Yankee.

A series of loud explosions rocked central Baghdad today – more than an hour after polls closed in the historic Iraqi elections.

The cause of the blasts could not be determined but they appeared to come from the west of the city.

MSNBC TV is reporting that figure as the official estimate. Some journalists on the ground have noted a gut reaction that the estimate is high

MSNBC TV: British C-130 transport has crashed in Iraq. Down 25 miles NW of Baghdad. No news of casualties, but wreckage is widely scattered.

FOX News is reporting that someone threw a grenade into a Mosul polling center. Five U.N. soldiers were injured, but apparently no fatalities. No suspect was caught.

The attack occurred after the polls closed.

Liminal writes:

I cannot tell you how happy I am that my family did not go to vote.

He also notes:

I was just listening to bbc and this is what i hear as they interview people live as they are in line to vote. A small but significant translational error follows:

bbc dude: “Who are you going to vote for?

iraqi dude: Ayad Allawi.

bbc dude: Why are you voting for Allawi?

iraqi dude: Yaani, zain, kh'osh rijaal…[I mean, he's a good guy]

translator: He can control the government, the country…

Notice how the Iraqi dude didn't say a damn thing about “control[ing] the government, the country”…So, does Allawi's party have “special” translators giving scripted answers? Or does the translator not speak Arabic? WTF!

Anyway, like I said before…whatever.

out

A suicide attacker killed three people and injured 13 others in central Iraq when he boarded a minibus bound for a polling station in Babil province, the Polish military said.

The blast rocked a minibus carrying voters to a polling station near Abu Alwan, the military said in a statement. An investigation into the incident has been started, it said.

No further information on the attack was immediately available.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Iraq elections are “going better than expected” Sunday, despite conflicting reports about the extent of voter turnout in areas plagued by intimidation and violence.

“Every indication is that the election in Iraq is going better than expected,” Rice said on ABC's “This Week.”

“What we're seeing here is the voice of freedom,” Rice said in the first response to the election from the Bush administration.

“No, it's not a perfect election,” Rice conceded, but she called it a positive development no one had foreseen three years ago when Saddam Hussein was still the dictator of Iraq.

More…

/RANT ON/

And while I’m at it … 60 , 70, 80 percent turnout under threat of death and violence? And here in the States? Forty to 60%, each major election cycle, like clockwork.

This blogger stands in humble awe of the Iraqis who today risked everything … everything … to exercise their francise. From them, there is a lesson for us all.

/RANT OFF/

The polls in Iraq have closed, ending the country's first open elections in more than 50 years and setting a course for what U.S. officials hope will be a long democratic future.

More…

Alaasmary at Sun of Iraq:

Election Day

Election Day
Today we vote, today is a democracy birthday.
The people lines are very long, We heard explosions voice but we vote.
I'm very happy today, long live Iraq, long live love and long live democracy.
I will post more images here.
A suicide explosion in Al-Mansor city, Al-Sader city and in New Baghdad city near election center , but the Iraqis still insistent to vote.
We will crush the terrorists.
The democracy will win.

MSNBC TV (no link): Turnout is only 1% in Ramadi, but is closer to 5% or 6% in the province as a whole (the most violent and restive part of the country.

Iraq the Model:

We had all kinds of feelings in our minds while we were on our way to the ballot box except one feeling that never came to us, that was fear.
We could smell pride in the atmosphere this morning; everyone we saw was holding up his blue tipped finger with broad smiles on the faces while walking out of the center.

I couldn't think of a scene more beautiful than that.

Read the whole thing…

No news here — just an observation. Early this morning, in the predawn light, a dusting of new snow on the ground, I was busily switching between 5 … 10 … 15 different browser windows, each displaying the blog of a different Iraqi.

Then it struck me: How remarkable. How remarkable my process was, compared to early 2003. Remember early 2003? We were all reading one blog, more than any other: Where is Raed? Salam had us all linking and loading and commenting in the build up to the war. The only Iraqi blogger out there … such a hero, at the time, for posting from behind the Saddam Curtain.

And now? Now there are dozens … over a hundred … Iraqi blogs. For the occupation, against, in Arabic, in English, old, young, doctors, women. Look at the list … look at them all, posting their views and bringing their doorsteps to the doors of the world.

Whatever you think of the war, this you can't deny: citizen journalism is alive and well amongst the fertile crescent.

From Ryan of Cigars in the Sand, blogging from Iraq.

Every Iraqi who woke up this morning was faced with this calculus:

“Some voters today will, without a doubt, be killed either on their way to vote, waiting to vote, or actually voting. Will I risk my life today for democracy?”

And they Iraqi people have answered loud and clear: Yes. These men and women have been waiting their entire lives to make this kind of political statement.

I can't even begin to accurately capture the excitement in the air. When I've visited the polling station this morning (3 times, so far), I've seen nothing but smiles. And that is with the sound of bombs in the distance. Let's forget all the differences we have in the United States for one day, and celebrate the amazing resilience of the Iraqi populace.

Lots more. Start at the top and scroll down.

At a polling place in eastern Baghdad, an Iraqi policeman in a black ski mask tucked his assault rifle under one arm and held the hand of an elderly blind woman to guide her to the polls.

Fathiya Mohammed shrugged off the incessant threats of violence and donned her head-to-toe abaya before heading to her neighborhood polling station in the small town of Askan south of Baghdad.

“This is democracy,” the elderly woman said proudly, holding up a thumb stained with the purple ink used to mark those who had voted. “This is the first day I feel freedom.”

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.

An Iraqi election official said Sunday that 72 percent of eligible Iraqi voters had turned out so far nationwide.

The official, Adel al-Lami of the Independent Electoral Commission, offered no overall figures of the actual number of Iraqis who have voted to back up the claim.

Al-Lami said the percentage of registered voters who had gone to the polls in some Baghdad neighborhoods was as high as 95 percent.

More…

Also:

Close to 66 per cent of registered expatriate Iraqis have so far voted in 14 countries.

The International Organisation for Migration says the largest turnout was in Jordan, where 72.9 per cent of Iraqi exiles registered to vote have done so.

A total of 186,619 people in the Middle East, North America, Australia and Western Europe have registered to take part in the election.

Voter turnout in the 2004 Presidential election in the United States was 60%.

Iraqi polls were to close an hour earlier Sunday as violence swept the country during the first free general election in more than 50 years.

Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem al-Shaalan told the Dubai-based al-Arabiya news channel at least 27 people were killed Sunday, but he insisted “we are satisfied with the current security conditions.”

His comments came shortly after six suicide attacks were reported across the country and as mortar grenades targeted polling stations.

A spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, Farid Ayar, did not give a reason for closing the polls at 5 p.m. local time instead of 6 p.m., but officials privately said it was due to the increased incidents of violence.

More…

The Iraqi Central Election reports that election turnout Iraqi province of Nadjaf reached 80%. The total number of the registered voters in the province is 500,000.

Chrenkoff has a nice roundup of E-Day here, with his typical Polish/Australian flair.

WSTM has a roundup of perspectives from regional news sources:

People across the Middle East are voicing cautious optimism about Iraq's elections.
An Abu Dhabi daily newspaper is jubilant, declaring “The new Iraq is born today.” Other newspapers are more guarded, concerned about the deadly chaos.

Qatar's daily says, “We don't want to drown in optimism.” The paper says attempts to democratize are “not held in such an atmosphere.”

Saudi Arabia's Arab News newspaper calls the vote a historic moment for Iraq and a “much needed victory for moderation.”

Just breaking on FOX - links/updates as they come in.

A Web site statement purportedly from insurgency leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group claimed responsibility for the election-day attacks.

Update from AP:

A Web site statement purportedly from insurgency leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group claimed responsibility Sunday for at least four attacks on polling centers across Iraq.

The group, Al-Qaida in Iraq, said its “lions'' attacked at least four voting centers in Baghdad, including one in the upscale Mansour neighborhood.

The statement's authenticity could not immediately be verified. It was posted on a Web site noted for carrying militant messages and it was purportedly issued in the name of the group's media coordinator, Abu Maysarah al-Iraqi.

The group claimed to have killed “police, national guards and Americans,'' without giving specifics. It also claimed responsibility for an attack on the Green Zone, the fortified Baghdad enclave holding the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government buildings, which it called the “Black Zone.''

The group also said it was active in the cities of Mosul, Samarra and Baqouba as well as the Anbar province.

Ali in Baghdad has a long, detailed, and frankly moving description of his voting experience. Read the whole thing, but here's a sample:

The best Eid I ever had.

Last night I couldn't sleep well. I was so excited and I wanted to be at the voting center before it even opens its door. I was afraid that I was going to be among a minority who are going to vote, but I was still very happy for rather a different reason. It's that just as I care about the outcome of this election and that democracy would work in Iraq, I cared no less about voting on a personal level. This was my way to stand against those who humiliated me, my family and my friends. It was my way of saying,” You're history and you don't scare me anymore”. It was my way to scream in the face of all tyrants, not just Saddam and his Ba'athists and tell them, “I don't want to be your, or anyone's slave. You have kept me in your jail all my life but you never owned my soul”. It was my way of finally facing my fears and finding my courage and my humanity again …

… I'm still thrilled as I'm watching Iraqis vote allover Iraq through TV. Al Arabyia just reported that 6 thousand people in Fallujah have voted till now out of 60 thousands who have returned to their homes (total not voters). I listened to that and I felt enormous admiration and respect to those 6 thousand heroes. Things are difficult in Baghdad but it's still incomparable to Fallujah. I'm sure that the number will rise towards the end of the day.

I'm stil overwhelmed with thoughts and emotions that I don't know what to say more. The only things I can feel so strongly now are hope, excitement, pride and a strange internal peace. I have won my battle and I'm watching the whole Iraqis winning their battle too. I'll try to write to you later my friends.
A'ash Al Iraq, A'ashat America, A'ash Al Tahaluf. (Long live Iraq, long live America and long live the coalition)

Alaa writes:

SUICIDE BOMBERS V. SUICIDE VOTERS

Greetings Friends,

I bow in respect and awe to the men and women of our people who, armed only with faith and hope are going to the polls under the very real threats of being blown to pieces. These are the real braves; not the miserable creatures of hate who are attacking one of the noblest things that has ever happened to us. Have you ever seen anything like this? Iraq will be O.K. with so many brave people, it will certainly O.K.; I can say no more just now; I am just filled with pride and moved beyond words. People are turning up not only under the present threat to polling stations but also under future threats to themselves and their families; yet they are coming, and keep coming. Behold the Iraqi people; now you know their true metal. We shall never forget the meanness of these bas…s. After this is over there will be no let up, they must be wiped out. It is our duty and the duty of every decent human to make sure this vermin is no more and that no more innocent decent people are victimized.

My condolences to the Great American people for the tragic recent losses of soldiers. The blood of Iraqis and Americans is being shed on the soil of Mesopotamia; a baptism with blood. A baptism of a lasting friendship and alliance, for many years to come, through thick and thin, we shall never forget the brave soldiers fallen while defending our freedom and future.

This is a very hurried message, while we are witnessing something quite extraordinary. I myself have voted and so did members of my family. Thank God for giving us the chance.

Salaam for now

From Ali in Mosul:

Can you believe it!!!

The last post I promised with an arabic post about elections, but I changed my mind ;
It'll be in English.

I was so surprised when I woke up today and before I had my breakfast , I opened the TV on Ninava channel . can you guess what I saw ? you can't? ok….. I'll tell you.
People is going to election , but not incent ….actually in THOUSAND, a man said: It took me two hours standing in the long queue , and you know where ??? in AL-ISLAH AL ZIRAEE region, the most dangerous part of the city….

I am very happy so that the Iraqis are going to choose thier goverment
OOOOOOOhhh

it's 12:50 pm now, I am going to watch people when they are happy

c u

Life in Baghdad writes:

The ultimate question: “To vote or not to vote?” (I read this quote somewhere but I forgot where, I assume the source will not mind me using it)

Personally, I very much do want to vote, but up to this moment I have not decided whether I actually will. I think I’ll wait till the elections day, see how things will go and decide then. My family is afraid of voting and are asking me not to go fearing for my safety, but as I said, I have not decided yet.

Once I’ve read a very useful quote meaning that when you are forced to choose between two alternatives, choose the one that will not make you feel guilty or sorry if it turns out to be the wrong one.

Let’s apply this rule on ‘to vote or not to vote’.

If I choose ‘not to vote’, and the elections turned out to be successful, I might regret that I was not part of this process. This leads to the conclusion that I should vote.

If I choose to vote, and then something bad happens to me or to any of my family, I will surely regret my decision even if the elections succeed. This then means that I should not vote.
Oops, the rule does not apply on this case.

And today, and answer to the question:

I did.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The chief United Nations electoral official in Iraq says the turnout of voters in some parts of the country is exceeding expectations, despite the violence and intimidation.
[…]
Carlos Valenzuela, who helped organise today's poll, says according to initial reports, participation seemed to be exceeding expectations in some parts of the country.

In Mosul, which had seen some of the worst pre-poll violence, there were even people turning up, Mr Valenzuela said.

He says some booths had not opened at first around Sunni areas of western Baghdad and in the stretch of Sunni towns in the Sunni triangle, but that problem has now been solved.

Yahoo! News /AP is reporting that after Day 2 of Iraqi expat voting, nearly two-thirds of those eligible are expected to have cast their vote. (That said, only one quarter of those who could register, did.)

PennLive.com has a nice primer on Iraqi election procedures.

The 21K Walk To Freedom

Thousands of people are now walking a 13-mile stretch between Abu Ghraib and Gazaliyah to cast votes in the elections, military sources tell Fox News. The mass march has been caught by unmanned drones, and Fox says they will soon have pictures of the subtle demonstration of the Iraqi desire for liberty.

—-

Rueters photo: Disabled Iraqi man Mohammed Karim Khader, 80, is carried on the back of another man on his way to cast his vote in the northern Kurdish city of Suleimaniya, January 30, 2005

Sun of Iraq is excited:
Today we vote, today is a democracy birthday.
The people lines are very long, We heard explosions voice but we vote. I'm very happy today, long live Iraq, long live love and long live democracy.

He took this photo of his finger, after being inked at the polling place. A picture is, indeed, worth a thousand words:

[photo property of Alaasmary]

Democracy in Iraq:

I am happy to report…no I am honored to report that I have cast my ballot in our election. It is such an amazing feeling to be able to have some control over the destiny of my nation, a feeling I have not known before! I was one of the first ones to report to our local voting station, and I placed my vote, my stained finger is proof (The authorities are using such a system to make sure people do not vote twice). I was not the only one to show up at the opening of the voting area, there were at least a dozen other Iraqis waiting to take part in this momentus event, and as I left, I saw tens more file in.

[to be updated]

Reuters is reporting that … at least unofficially … turnout is high, possibly 50 percent or higher. The wire also notes that “few are voting” in Sunni areas.

/SNARK ON/

Well … let's see … given that US voter turnout has hovered near 50% since, oh, 1924, it might be a tad difficult to declare this election a sham on the basis of participation, eh?

We'll have to look elsewhere for our shamminess …

/SNARK OFF/

That's the headline at Inadaily, reprinting an Op/Ed from Lebanon's Daily Star.

The Muslim interest in democracy is best understood through a clear perception of the reality of how Muslims live. A country like Iraq, for example, is home to a diverse and varied population: It includes Arabs and Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites, as well as minorities of other religions and ethnic groups. Moreover, not all Muslims practice Islam, nor do those who practice it do so in the same way.

So religion cannot be imposed; individuals must practice it according to their own choices. Any enforcement of religious practice only creates hostility toward religion. Thus, I believe that a political system that best permits free choice - including the choice to be a practicing Muslim - is the best system for Islam.

Read the rest … you may not get it on CNN.

So say the Picayune Item. This must be from a wire report, but it's difficult to tell. Most of the fatalities are from the prior-mentioned mortar attacks.

Update: Now the AP Wire has it at 29 …

From the BBC Reporters Log (latest last):

BASRA : Well, I'm standing outside the Markul (ph) polling station in central Basra - polling station number 935, where they were so eager to get voting under way that the polling station actually opened five minutes early.

There's been a queue of 40 or 50 people outside desperate to get in and vote, most of them men it seems.

They've been going in. I spoke to the first man to cast his ballot. He emerged with his finger covered in purple indelible ink to prove that he has voted and he came out saying he was 55 years old, that he'd never done anything as important in his life as voting today, casting his ballot.

ARBIL : Voting was off to a slow start at polling stations near the centre of the city.

Some of the first voters waiting in the cold dawn said they had come early to avoid the rush that's expected later in the day.

ALI ALGHABI : Over 2,500 people, half the population of the town, have registered to vote at this station and there was a steady stream filing into other centres around the town. The polls here will close at five, before the count begins in the same rooms where the votes have been made.

ARBIL[UPDATE] : Voting is really starting to pick up very strongly now. It got off to a slow start. It was a cold morning this morning and with the security measures, people were taking time to get to the polls.

But now that polling's been underway for two or three hours, there are very big crowds starting to form at the polling station in the centre of Arbil. There's certainly hundreds of people outside having to line up for quite a long time before they can get in.

BASRA[UPDATE] : Turnout here has been extraordinary. We've been to a few polling stations in the city centre and we've seen huge queues of men and women who were searched separately.

Some have had to wait for an hour before casting their ballot.

BAGHDAD : Iraqi authorities have told us there have now been seven suicide bombings carried out by men with explosives strapped around their bodies. There has also been a mortar attack in Sadr City in Baghdad which killed four voters.

So militants are doing what they can to carry out their threats to disrupt the poll and shed the blood of voters but it is also very evident there is a lot of enthusiasm for the vote.

NAJAF : A lot of women turned out and their numbers dwarf those of the men. I have seen very old people unable to walk, I have seen blind people being led to the polling stations.

AL AMARAH : We were told the Shia would turn out in big numbers and so it has proved. From Basra to Al Amarah, to the northern most sections of the British zone, thousands of people are lined up on the streets.

Even in the smaller provincial towns 400 kilometres from Basra, towns like Ali al-Ghabi and Komait, where there are only a handful of polling stations, the queues are several hundred deep.

From the air we could see thousands of people heading to the towns, some in groups, some on buses coming from all directions.

FALLUJAH : There are two or three places open for voting in Falluja. One place I can see is inside the public park.

There a few people standing, are proceeding to cast their votes but their number is less than the fingers of one hand.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Turnout has been low in Baghdad but large numbers are reported to be turning out in the Kurdish North and Shiite South.

Explosions have rung out across Baghdad for most of the morning as insurgents seeking to scare people away from voting have rained down mortars and sent in bombers with suicide belts to a number of polling stations.

There have also been mortar attacks in other cities including Mosul, Baquaba and Hilla and an explosion was reported at a polling station in Basra.

The deadliest attack occurred when a bomber with explosives strapped to his body blew himself up in the queue at a polling station in east Baghdad, killing six people, an official said.

Another bomber killed four people in west Baghdad, while others killed two people in attacks elsewhere in the capital.

A suicide car bomb also killed a policeman near a Baghdad polling site and at least four people died in a blast at a voting centre in the Sadr City slums, a Shiite stronghold.

A mortar attack in southern Baghdad killed at least two and mortar rounds also rained down on other cities, including Basra, Mosul, Baquaba and Hilla, where one person was killed.

The US Army says there have been nine suicide bombings around Baghdad but in most cases Iraqi police have prevented the attackers from penetrating inside the voting centres.
[…]
A spokesman for the electoral commission said polling stations at Latifiya, Mahmudiya and Yusifiyah have not been able to open because of security threats and in nearby Falluja only a handful of residents risked the threat of bombs and mortars and threats by the Al Qaeda leader Mussab al-Zarwaqi to track down and kill anyone who went to vote.

From The Scotsman :

The BBC was last night forced to issue an apology after it “misinterpreted” figures and claimed more Iraqi civilians may have been killed by coalition forces and their allies than by insurgents.

The figures, released by the Iraqi Ministry of Health, gave details of Iraqi deaths in the country between July 1 last year and January 1 this year.

They showed 3,274 people died and 12,657 were injured in conflict-related violence. Of these, 2,041 deaths were the result of military operations and 8,542 people were injured. This compares with 1,233 deaths caused by terrorist operations.

The BBC's Panorama said “military operations” meant those carried out by coalition forces and Iraqi security forces. The programme also categorised all the deaths and injuries as civilian.

But yesterday the Iraqi Ministry of Health disputed this and said those killed in military operations included terrorists and Iraqi security forces. The ministry added that “military operations” referred to Iraqis killed by terrorists as well as by coalition and Iraqi security forces.

The BBC said it “regrets mistakes in its published and broadcast reports yesterday”.
[…]
Yesterday, an Iraqi official claimed the BBC chose to ignore a statement put out by the health ministry on Friday which said those recorded as killed in “military action” included Iraqis killed by terrorists, not only those killed by coalition forces or Iraqi security forces.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):

A suicide bomber strapped with explosives blew himself up at a polling centre in western Baghdad, killing at least four people and wounding nine.

Earlier a suicide car bomb killed a policeman outside a polling station.

Another suicide bomber on foot blew himself up among voters queuing at another centre in western Baghdad, causing an unknown number of casualties.

A blast at a voting centre in the Sadr City slums killed at least four people.

A mortar attack in southern Baghdad killed at least two and mortar rounds also rained down in other cities, including Mosul, Baquba and Hilla, where one person was killed.

An explosion hit a polling site in the southern city of Basra, but there was no immediate word on casualties.

Polling places were deserted in parts of the Sunni Arab heartland, where an anti-US insurgency has been bloodiest and many people were boycotting the election.

But voters were queuing in some Shiite-dominated areas and the Kurdish north.

An historic day: Voting has officially begun in Iraq. Voters have begun to cast ballots in Iraq's first free election since 1953 and the first of the post-Saddam Hussein era.

CNN and Fox are both offering live coverage. The polling places look a bit empty - they're saying that citizens are frightened of terrorist attacks so they're waiting it out.

Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer was one of the first to cast his vote at the election headquarters in the Green Zone.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. (11 p.m. EST Saturday) on a chill, dark morning and were due to stay open until 5 p.m. (9 a.m. EST).

To try to prevent feared violence, Iraq was under security lockdown. Borders were sealed, airports closed and only official vehicles allowed on the streets after heavy bloodshed on the eve of voting, including a bold rocket strike that killed two Americans at the U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad's Green Zone.

We'll be bringing you news as it happens - plus we'll look in on the Iraq bloggers. Stay tuned for history in the making.

General John Abizaid, America's senior military commander in the Middle East, has admitted that suicide bombers are likely to penetrate polling stations during today's Iraqi elections, despite unprecedented security measures.

Even as President George W Bush predicted that “the courage of the Iraqi people will allow the vote to take place”, his top officer for the region warned: “Undoubtedly, insurgents are going to attack polling sites with suicide belts wrapped around them.”

Gen Abizaid told an American newspaper that in the four Iraqi provinces dominated by Sunni Muslims, where the insurgency is strongest, the election-day battle “will be tough and it will be difficult and it will be bloody.”

More..

[update to this post]

Just in from Fox:

U.S. forces captured seven insurgents suspected to be behind the attack on the U.S. Embassy that killed two Americans and wounded four in Baghdad Saturday evening.

More details as they come in.

A senior Shi'ite cleric urged Iraqis on Saturday to boycott Sunday's landmark elections and take up arms to expel U.S. forces from the country.

“The current elections are a conspiracy to divide and destroy Iraq ,” Ayatollah Ahmed al-Hassani al-Baghdadi told Reuters on the eve of Iraq's first multi-party poll in 50 years.

Baghdadi, one of the few Shi'ite clerics openly to oppose an election that is expected to cement the long-oppressed Shi'ite majority's newfound political power, said a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and scrapping the interim constitution that embraces federalism should precede a poll.

Read more…

From Kurdo's World, where you can get on-the-spot election coverage:

This is what the Referendum on Kurdistan ballot looks like.

It says “What do you choose?”
Kurdistan part of Iraq. (tick the box near Iraq flag)
An independent Kurdistan. (tick the box near Kurdistan flag)

Much more from Kurdistan - and lots of pictures - at Kurdo's World

Thank to Jeff Jarvis for letting us reprint his massive link round-up here at TCP.

Jeff will be using this list of election coverage blogs when he appear on MSNBC Sunday from 6 a.m. to noon and again in the 5 p.m. hour. If you have more blogs to recommend, please add them. Jeff is also looking for links to current U.S. military blogs?

IRAQI BLOGGERS

: Friends of Democracy has citizen correspondents in each province filing reports, mostly in Arabic, which are translated and posted here. Michael J. Totten is acting as anchor-blogger through the election. Note that they will have a webcast show about this starting at 2p ET Sunday and it will also be aired on C-SPAN.

: Friends of Democracy was founded by Omar and Mohammed of IraqTheModel. They will be covering the election. Their brother, Ali, is covering things from here.

: Hammorabi has been critical of security and the current government but is excited about election day (a great post).

: Democracy in Iraq is a new one to me by a 26-year-old whose European-educated father taught his children English.

: Kurdo is blogging the election from Kurdistan, complete with pictures and an endorsement for List 173.

: Here is a Kurdish group blog. Read this post by Sami: One citizen talking about his choice in the election.

: A Kurd in London covered absentee voting there, complete with pictures of electioneering by the poll.

: A Family in Baghdad is written (in Arabic and English) by the other of Raed (Salam Pax' pal) and his brothers. It is generally against the occupation and recent posts include letters from the mothers of American soldiers killed there.

: Riverbend's latest post is about getting water, not the election.

: Live from Baghad is by Ayad, who just returned to Iraq from Cleveland.

: The Neurotic Iraqi Wife thinks that registration is light.

: Rose, a mother in Baghad, isn't sure she'll be able to get online for the election. She writes about daily life in her city.

: Fayrouz covers the news via Dallas.

: In Sun of Iraq, Alaasmary writes: “There are four days and the democracy will win; it will be a real war against the terrorists.”

: Iraqi Thoughts is covering the election from Canada and today writes about the numbers in expat voting.

: Life in Baghdad.

: Baghdad Dweller is covering the election.

: Citizen of Mosul is a doctor who writes about a typical day there.

: Iraqi Comments is from a 25-year-old in Belgium.

: I expect to see Alaa posting here.

: Zeyad is in Jordan until after the election.

: Iraq Election blog with links to the parties.

: Iraqi Letter to America.

: Iraqi Enterprise is a company offering news links.

: Iraq Blog Count.

IRAQI YOUTH

: Aunt Najma gives us the perspective from Mosul.

: Nabil, Zeyad's teen brother, talks about the election in his school.

: Baghdad Girl, a 13-year-old who writes about living in fear and puts up pictures of her cats, like any self-respecting blogger.

: HNK is eager for the Americans to leave Mosul.

: Khalid, Raed's brother, blogs here.

: Then Some is an Iraqi college student already cynical about elected politicians.

MORE

: Hardblogger's David Shuster is reporting from Baghdad.

: Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, reports from Iraq. [via Lost Remote]

: The BBC's reporter blog and citizens' blog.

: Mark Cuban's HDnet (high-definition TV) will be covering the election full-time.

: Later… Here's the Iraq Election Newswire.

: Here are Friends of Democracy's original Arabic-language reports (using the world's first Arabic-language blogging tool!).

: Here are the latest photos from Friends of Democracy.

FOX NEWS UPDATE ON EMBASSY ATTACK

Fox now reports that the military has captured [less than three hours after the event] the three individuals who fired the 122mm rocket which hit the US Embassy in Baghdad, killing two Americans and wounding four more.

US military forces pinpointed the launch point, tracked the “insurgents” with by helicopter, and sent in forces to capture them.

Fox also reports that the military person killed in the attack was a sailor.

Note: The US military has counter-battery radar, which can detect the launch of any indirect-fire projectile and instantly calculate both the launch point and the impact point.

FOX News Flash: At 1247PM EST, a rocket hit the U.S. Embassy employee quarters in the Green Zone,

Reuters reports:U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Hit by Rocket, Two Dead

A rocket hit the U.S. embassy compound inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone on Saturday, killing two people and wounding at least six, a diplomatic source said.

The rocket struck after dark on the eve of Iraq (news - web sites)'s election. The explosion was heard across Baghdad's city center and sirens sounded in the Green Zone shortly after the attack.

A U.S. embassy official confirmed a blast occurred but had no details on casualties or the cause.

“It was a rocket. Two people are dead and at least six are wounded,” a diplomatic source said.

A security source inside the Green Zone confirmed the incident and the death toll.

FOX Update: Fox is now reporting it may have been a mortar or a rocket. One soldier, one civilian dead, 4-6 people injured.

• Groups Use Internet to Scare Iraqi Voters

Militant groups have stepped up their anti-election propaganda and threatening statements on the Internet, hoping a stepped up cyberspace psychological operation will suppress turnout and damage the elections' legitimacy.

Although only about 2 percent of Iraqis have Internet access, due to weak infrastructure, the threats and messages reach the general public when they are reported by local and international television stations and newspapers.

—-

• 30 Percent of Iraqi Exiles Voted on First Day

Almost 30 percent of registered Iraqi exiles voted on the first day of absentee balloting in Iraq's first postwar election, organizers said on Saturday.

A total of 84,429 Iraqis abroad, or 29.8 percent of the 280,303 who registered, voted on Friday. Those who registered number only a quarter of expatriates entitled to vote.

Nevertheless, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) which runs the Iraqi out-of-country voting program said the poll reflected strong desire by exiles to participate in their homeland's political future.

• Iraqis Stock Up on Food, Gas

Nightfall approached, the military curfew drew near and Baghdad residents scurried from shop to shop on one of the city's main streets to stock up on food, water and gasoline before Sunday's national election.

Umm Ahmed, a 33-year-old housewife, rushed to a store. Like many Iraqis, she was worried she may not be able to shop in coming days because of curfews and violence.

—-

• Polarization and Apathy Co-Exist Side by Side

The city is disfigured by signboards and posters filling walls and shop windows, mainly in major sites like Dijla Street, Baghdad Street, and Tarbiya Street. Police and National Guard vehicles are visible everywhere.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Over 7,000 Iraqi expatriates in Australia have turned out to vote in the first two days of voting for a Transitional National Assembly in Iraq.

The International Organisation for Migration Out of Country Voting says people have travelled from Perth, Adelaide, Darwin, Brisbane and New Zealand to cast their votes at nine polling centres in Sydney, Melbourne and Shepparton.

Spokeswoman Bronwyn Curran says voting was disrupted at the Auburn polling centre in Sydney's west after a small protest, when police found an unattended bag.

“They were nervous that it might be dangerous so as a security precaution they cleared the centre, suspended polling for just over an hour while they called the bomb squad in to check the bag, but after inspecting it they found it only contained biscuits,” she said.

Despite locating polling stations as far away from Perth voters as Los Angeles is from New York - or for New Zealand voters, New York is from England - they still couldn't stop some of them from voting.

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting corporation) :

Two US soldiers have been killed when their helicopter crashed in western Baghdad, the US military says.

”Two Task Force Baghdad soldiers died when their helicopter went down in the south-western portion of the Iraqi capital,” the statement said.

The military had reported the crash on Friday but the fate of the two-man crew had not been immediately known.

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

“An improvised explosive device detonated at about 2:00 pm on Jan 28 in southern Baghdad, killing one Task Force Baghdad Soldier and wounding three others,” the military said in a statement.

It announced separately the death of another soldier in a small arms fire attack in northern Baghdad.

Scott Elliott, who publishes the famously useful Election Projection, emails:

I don't know if anyone has touched on a recent Gallup poll in which participants were asked to name a turnout precentage that would make the elections in Iraq legitimate. I've posted my conclusions based on the responses. I think the numbers are amazing…

As a point of reference, the American elections last year saw 60% of the voting-eligible population cast a vote. … What these numbers mean is that fully 40% of those polled who had an opinion (32% out of 79%) believe Iraq has to have a higher turnout on Sunday than we did in November for the elections to be legitimate!

By that standard, not only would the 2004 US election be illegitimate, but every US presidential election since 1970 would be as well!

Read his post on the topic here.

Just ahead of the first free balloting in Iraq in half a century, the nation battened down for the vote, imposing a 7 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew on Friday and closing Baghdad International Airport. Five U.S. soldiers were killed in the capital and insurgents blasted polling stations across the country.

The curfew will remain in effect through Monday and the nation's borders will be sealed for the election period. Medical teams are on alert and nationwide restrictions on traffic will be imposed from Saturday to Monday to try and deter car bombs.

More…

* A homicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body in front of a police station in a Kurdish town near the Iranian border, killing eight people on the eve of Iraq's crucial national election.

• The bombing came shortly after insurgents mounted a rocket attack against an Iraqi army base in the town of Duluiya, north of Baghdad, killing three soldiers and wounding four, security sources said.

…in Australia.

From News Ltd :

A Sydney polling booth for Iraqis voting in their country's historic election was shut down for an hour today after a punch-up involving protesters and a subsequent bomb scare.
Organiser of Australia's overseas voting program, Bernie Hogan, said the fight erupted when a group of around 20 protesters started yelling at voters leaving the Auburn centre.

”They were on one side of the road protesting against the election while voters were coming out proudly with ink on their hands,” Mr Hogan said.

“The next thing I knew there's 50 people and a bit of push and shove and punching in the middle of road.”
[…]
The protesters had been granted a permit to stage their anti-election action for two hours.

Mr Hogan said they were holding the same black flag with white lettering that has appeared as a backdrop in videos released by Iraqi insurgents featuring foreign hostages begging for their lives.

International Organisation for Migration Iraqi adviser Thair Wali said the protesters' flag and Arabic slogans identified them as Wahabis, or followers of an austere brand of Sunni Islam practised mostly in Saudi Arabia.
[…]
Mr Wali said the fight was sparked by protesters taking photographs of voters leaving the station.

“This is scary for the people, taking photos of the voting” he said.

Many of Australia's estimated 80,000 Iraqis declined to register for the election, fearing that their votes would make relatives in Iraq terrorist targets.

Authorities in Iraq have arrested two close associates of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, including the chief of the terror mastermind's Baghdad operation, the government said Friday, two days ahead of historic elections that extremists have vowed to subvert.

[…]

Qassim Dawoud, a top security adviser, told reporters that the arrests of the al-Zarqawi lieutenants occurred in mid-January but gave few details.

Dawoud said one of the men, Salah Suleiman al-Loheibi, headed al-Zarqawi's Baghdad operation and had met with the Jordanian-born terror leader more than 40 times over three months.

The other was identified as Ali Hamad Yassin al-Issawi.

More..

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Iraqi provinces imposed curfews in a bid to thwart plots by insurgents to wreck the country's first democratic elections in half a century.

Mosul's governor imposed a four-day vehicle ban on the troubled northern city where insurgents are bent on wreaking havoc on Iraq's election day on Sunday.

“The curfew was imposed from 6 pm Thursday until Tuesday at 6 am,” local governor Dureid Kashmula said.

No cars will be allowed on the street, with the exception of ambulances, although people will still be allowed out on foot. A night-time curfew was already in place in the city.

Iraqi and US forces have already cordoned off several schools in the city that have been designated polling centres, an AFP reporter said.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A car bomb near Baghdad's main power station has killed four people including three policemen as Iraq prepares to lock down for Sunday's elections.

The car bomb went off as many in Baghdad were heading to Friday prayers at Dura in the south of the city, the site of the city's main electricity generating station and a major oil refinery.

Around 40 people have been killed around the country in the past 24 hours as insurgent groups continue their campaign to intimidate voters.

The Al Qaeda-linked group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has released a video of the execution of a close aide of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi with warning that it will track down and kill voters.

Salem Kanani was the 22nd candidate from the Prime Minister's party to be murdered in recent months.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A suicide bomber rammed an Iraqi patrol in the Sunni dominated city of Samarra, north of Baghdad.

As rescue forces moved in a second car bomber struck, killing at least eight Iraqi soldiers and three civilians.

At nearby Baquba, a car bomber killed five people at the provincial government headquarters where former Baathists, tribal leaders, clerics and local politicians had gathered for a peace conference.

To the south, an improvised roadside bomb killed five Iraqis and wounded 15 as an Iraqi army patrol passed a cattle market on the road from Mahmudiya and Latifiyah.

A US marine was killed in the same area.

We linked the other day to Ten Kennedy's speech to the J. Hopkins School of Intnl. Studies. Now Belmont Club offers offers this take:

And perhaps for the first time in history, Ted Kennedy's words will not be forgotten. The emergence of the Internet has closed down the “memory hole” within which the former apologists of Joseph Stalin, Kim Il Sung, Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein could hide their bad advance and from which they could emerge at whiles to offer new sage advice. The term 'memory hole' itself was coined by George Orwell who used it to describe the mechanism through which the media manipulated historical memory. One of the tenets of the Party in Orwell's 1984 was that “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past”, and the key to achieving mastery over history was the liberal use of the 'memory hole'.

Blogs: Filling the memory hole since 1998. Cool.

In other 'sphere reaction:

• Random Nuclear Strikes: Now let's all open our history books and remember what happened the last time Kennedy demanded a pull out of the Army from a foreign nation. A treaty was approved and signed to help out South Vietnam that included monetary and material help. After the pullout, Kennedy and his ilk voted against the appropriations to actually honor the agreement and MILLIONS OF VIETNAMESE WERE ALLOWED TO BE ENSLAVED AND SLAUGHTERED. Never again.

• Political Pornography: The left loves the fact that George Bush misspeaks occasionally, because that unquestionably means he's a complete idiot. Now that Ted Kennedy has given Sean Hannity a handful of these soundbites, this is what I call a sticky situation. The left deserve some of their own medicine, but at the same time I really think the right could be above that kind of behaviour. Among my friends, I've always been outspoken against comments about Bush's intellect based solely on occasional slip-ups in speech, so I'm also against calling Kennedy an idiot for the same reason. However, I have no sympathy for lefties who complain about Hannity's antics when most of them think Bush screwing up a colloquialism is irrefutable evidence of incompetence.

• RightPundit: Essentially, Senator Kennedy sounded like the coach during a timeout late in game when it looks like his team is about to lose, so he gives the team a morale-boosting speech so they don’t give up and try as best they can to rally and win the game by killing as many people as possible in the last few days, thereby destroying democracy in Iraq. How dare he. As I said at the start of this post, Senator Kennedy has a long, long history of being wrong. But this time, insulting our military men and women and putting a price on their head is just about as low as he could go.

• The Unofficial Kerry for President Blog: It is time to recognize that there is only one choice. America must give Iraq back to the Iraqi people. We need to let the Iraqi people make their own decisions, reach their own consensus, and govern their own country. We need to rethink the Pottery Barn rule. America cannot forever be the potter that sculpts Iraq's future. President Bush broke Iraq, but if we want Iraq to be fixed, the Iraqis must feel that they, not we, own it.

Iraq Dispatches is a blog published by Dahr Jamail, one of only a few independent US journalists in the country. He's been in Iraq for 8 months. From his “about” blurb:

Weary of the overall failure of the US media to accurately report on the realities of the war in Iraq for the Iraqi people and US soldiers, Dahr Jamail went to Iraq to report on the war himself.

His dispatches were quickly recognized as an important media resource and he is now writing for the Inter Press Service, The NewStandard and many other outlets. His reports have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald and Islam Online, to name just a few. Dahr's dispatches and hard news stories have been translated into Polish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese and Arabic. On the radio, Dahr is a special correspondent for Flashpoints and reports for the BBC, Democracy Now!, and numerous other stations around the globe.

In reading the blog, I see it's a different perspective than many of the Iraqi blogs out there. From a recent post:

With the “elections” just three days away, people are terrified. Families are fleeing Baghdad much as they did prior to the invasion of the country. Seeking refuge from what everyone fears to be a massive onslaught of violence in the capital city, huge lines of cars are stacked up at checkpoints on the outer edges of the city.

Policemen and Iraqi soldiers are trying to convince people to stay in the city and vote.

Nobody is listening to them.

Whereas Baghdad is filled with Fallujah refugees, now villages and smaller cities on the outskirts of Baghdad are filling up with election refugees.

Yet these places aren’t safe either. In Baquba attacks on polling stations are a near daily occurrence. Mortar attacks are common on polling stations even as far south as Basra. A truck bomb struck a Kurdish political party headquarters in a small town near Mosul, killing 15 people, wounding twice that many. A string of car bombs detonated at polling stations in Kirkuk, which was already under an 8pm-5am curfew, killing 10 Iraqis.

Here in Baghdad, although the High Commission for Elections in Iraq has yet to announce their locations, schools which are being converted into polling stations are already being attacked.

From the Tip Line.

Foxnews reports that Rep. Mike Pence(R-Ind) is asking Paul Volcker, the man tapped by the United Nations to lead a probe into the troubled Oil-for-Food program, to come forward and clear up the charges of conflict of interest.

It appears that Mr. Volker sat on a board for a company with ties to other companies directly involved with the Oil-For-Food program.

Full story is here.

Not certain if this has been posted as yet; thanks to Wayne on the Tip Line for the tip. The Friends of Democracy blog: sort of a Command Post for the Iraqi election; real-time Iraqi election coverage, from bloggers on the ground.

Our project and dream.

We endeavor to link the non governmental organizations (NGO's), students groups, women organizations and the individuals through a network to exchange experience and thoughts to push forward democracy process in Iraq.

We won't be isolated islands from now on.

We are stronger in sharing opinions and exchanging information and experience.

You are not alone, friends of democracy exist all over Iraq and now you are with them in every moment.

Our weapon: the word and free opinion.

Huzzah, brother, huzzah.

For the facts and figures important to this historical election, we'll point you to Friends of Democracy:

• Candidates and Parties
  
• Election Rules & Timeline
  
• Iraq Election Map
  
• Voter Turnout
  

U.S. troops packed extra uniforms and ammunition before moving out of their main base Thursday to take up positions around Baghdad, part of a massive security operation to protect voters during weekend elections that insurgents have vowed to disrupt.

[…]

In Iraq, local police and soldiers will play the more visible role, manning checkpoints and securing the polls — many of which have already been bombed and rocketed by insurgents ahead of Sunday’s vote.

American troops will be around, nonetheless — backing up the Iraqis in the event of major violence the Iraqis can’t handle, U.S. and Iraqi commanders said.

The U.S. presence could make American troops easier targets, and it also has raised concerns the United States might be seen as orchestrating the elections.

More…

Excerpts from Sen. Kennedy's January 27 speech to he .Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, via MSNBC.

President Bush has left us with few good choices. There are costs to staying, and costs to leaving. There may well be violence as we disengage militarily from Iraq and Iraq disengages politically from us, but there will be much more violence if we continue our present dangerous and destabilizing course. It will not be easy to extricate ourselves from Iraq, but we must begin.

——-

We thought in those early days in Vietnam that we were winning. We thought the skill and courage of our troops was enough. We thought that victory on the battlefield would lead to victory in war, and peace and democracy for the people of Vietnam.

——-

We lost our national purpose in Vietnam. We abandoned the truth. We failed our ideals. The words of our leaders could no longer be trusted.

——-

In the name of a misguided cause, we continued in a war too long. We failed to comprehend the events around us. We did not understand that our very presence was creating new enemies and defeating the very goals we set out to achieve.

——-

We cannot allow history to repeat itself in Iraq. We must learn from our mistakes in Vietnam and in Iraq. We must recognize what a large and growing number of Iraqis now believe the war in Iraq has become a war against the American occupation.

——-

We have reached the point that a prolonged American military presence in Iraq is no longer productive for either Iraq or the United States. The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution.

——-

The elections in Iraq this weekend provide an opportunity for a fresh and honest approach. We need a new plan that sets fair and realistic goals for self-government in Iraq, and works with the Iraqi government on a specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of our forces.

——-

We all hope for the best from Sunday's election. The Iraqis have a right to determine their own future. But Sunday's elections are not a cure for the violence and instability. Unless the Sunni and all the communities in Iraq believe they have a stake in the outcome and a genuine role in drafting the new Iraqi constitution, the election could lead to greater alienation, greater escalation, greater death - for us and for the Iraqis.

——-

President Bush's Iraq policy is not, as he said during last fall's campaign, a “catastrophic success.” It is a catastrophic failure. The men and women of our armed forces are serving honorably and with great courage under extreme conditions, but their indefinite presence is fanning the flames of conflict.

——-

A new Iraq policy must begin with acceptance of hard truths. Most of the violence in Iraq is not being perpetrated - as President Bush has claimed - by “a handful of folks that fear freedom” and people who want to try to impose their will on people;just like Osama bin Laden.”

The insurgency is largely home-grown. By our own government's count, the ranks of the guerillas are large and growing larger.

——-

We cannot defeat the insurgents militarily if we fail to effectively address the political context in which the insurgency flourishes. Our military and the insurgents are fighting for the same thing-the hearts and minds of the people - and that is a battle we are not winning.

——-

In the end, there is only one choice. America must give Iraq back to the Iraqi people. We need to let them make their own decisions, reach their own consensus, and govern their own country.

——-

We need to rethink the Pottery Barn rule. America cannot forever be the potter that sculpts Iraq's future. President Bush broke Iraq, but if we want Iraq to be fixed, the Iraqis must feel that they own it.

——-

The stakes are enormously high. The Iraqi people are facing historic issues — the establishment of a government, the role of Islam, and the protection of minority rights.

——-

The United States and the international community have a clear interest in a strong, tolerant and pluralistic Iraq, free from chaos and civil war.

——-

The first point in a new plan would be for the United Nations, not the United States, to provide assistance and advice on establishing a system of government and drafting a Constitution. An international meeting - led by the United Nations and the new Iraqi Government — should be convened immediately in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East to begin that process.

——-

Error is no excuse for its own perpetuation. Mindless determination doesn't make a better outcome more likely. Setting a firm strategy for ending the mission may not guarantee success, but failure to do so will almost certainly guarantee failure. Casualties are increasing. America is tied down. Our military is stretched to the breaking point. Our capacity to respond to crises and threats elsewhere in the world has been compromised.

Exiled Iraqi voters began casting ballots in western Sydney on Friday in their nation's historic elections — the first since former dictator Saddam Hussein's 2003 ouster.

Amid tight security at a converted furniture warehouse, young children mingled with elderly Kurdish women in head-to-toe black robes. About two dozen people jostled to be among the first to vote at 7 a.m.

“This is a long dream that now comes true,” said 56-year-old Karim Jari before casting his vote. “We hope this is a new beginning.”

Read more…

From CENTCOM

7 Arrested in Mosul :

Multi-National Force Soldiers detained four individuals suspected of being involved with an anti-Iraqi insurgent cell while conducting a raid south of Mosul. Suspects are in custody with no MNF injuries reported.

Soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment, detained three individuals suspected of anti-Iraqi activity while conducting cordon and search operations in Tal Afar. Suspects are in custody with no MNF injuries reported.

Kidnapping Foiled :

During a patrol in Baghdad's Khadamiyah district, the Soldiers [from the 10th Mountain Division's 2nd “Commando” Brigade Combat Team] noticed a suspicious vehicle about 8:30 p.m. They stopped the vehicle and found three Iraqis bound and gagged.

They detained five suspects in possession of four pistols, an AK-47 assault rifle and a sub-machine gun outfitted with a silencer.

The kidnap victims included a sheik and an administrator from the Iraqi Ministry of Oil.

No shots were fired. The suspects detained are being held for further questioning.

212 4th Brigade Recruits Finish Training :

212 direct recruit replacements graduated from the Iraqi Training Battalion in Al Kasik, Jan. 27.

Recruits spent three weeks in basic military skills refresher with concentration on blocks of instruction in likely mission subjects like traffic control points, local security patrols and fixed-site security.

The soldiers are all being assigned to the Iraqi Army's 4th Brigade.

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Iraq's top military commander claimed that Iraqi security forces will be in charge of the country by the end of 2005, with US troops out of the cities and scaled back to possibly one or two bases nationwide.

The comments by joint chief of staff General Babakir Zebari were the most explicit to date by a pro-American Iraqi official in terms of when Iraqi forces would be ready to protect their country and the US role could be reduced.
[…]
“Between six months to a year maximum, the multi-national forces can go to their bases. We'll be able to control the security situation,” General Zebari told AFP.

“Once we can control the security, we won't need them (the Americans) anymore. We'll need maybe one or two bases just to make sure no foreign countries try to invade,” he said.

After a large-scale reduction of US troops, General Zebari said a few American bases would serve as a security guarantee and cut down Iraq's defence costs, allowing the country to spend more money on infrastructure and job creation.

General Zebari said he foresaw the Pentagon's plan to send up to 10,000 US military advisers to assist Iraqi forces, extending well beyond 2005, even if the larger US troop presence shrinks.

“We actually do need a lot of them. We would like to see more of them coming on,” General Zebari said.

A senior defence official in the United States endorsed General Zebari's projection on the redeployment of US troops from cities but refrained from elaborating on base numbers.
[…]
“I am more conservative, less sanguine, on the timeline, but my opinion differs from his by months, not years.”

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

United States Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld says people need to have realistic expectations about how Iraq will function after elections this weekend.

American officials are warning that violence will continue after the election.

“It will take some time for that government to settle down, get its staff worked out,” Mr Rumsfeld said.

He says it will most likely be March or April before Iraq has a functioning, democratic government.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Four US Marines were killed in action in Anbar province, and an American soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack north of Baghdad, US officials said.

Also from the ABC :

A US soldier was shot dead in the Diyala province north of Baghdad Thursday, the US military said in a statement.

”One 1st Infantry Division Soldier died from a gunshot wound sustained about 2:05am (2305 GMT Wednesday) January 27 on Forward Operating Base Normandy, near the town of Muqdadiyah,” it said.

The statement did not elaborate on the circumstances of the incident.

CNN reports that neo-conservative Douglas Feith is leaving his post as Undersec. of Defense and Policy at the Defense Department this summer. For the unfamiliar, Feith oversaw the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Office of Special plans. He was also a man Tommy Franks described as “getting a reputation around here as the dumbest (expletive) guy on the planet.”

See a Command Post primer on the OSP here.

He was also one of the authors of “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” an Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies strategy article on securing Israel … and a think-piece which many believe made clear the neo-con's philisophical intent to invade Iraq all the way back in 1996.

See a Command Post primer on the article here.

Both primers have a multitude of links to bios, profiles, etc.

A smattering of Blogosphere reaction (most of which is from left-isle bloggers, who see this as very good news):

• Corrente: 'Gestapo' leader to abandon bunker: Douglas J. Feith plans to spend more time with family. Yeah, ok, sure. Spend it on an ice flow off the coast of Antartica why don't ya.

• Wampum: I share Tommy Franks' assessment.

• The American Street: Goodbye, Doug Feith; don’t let the door kill YOUR children on your way out, you miserable piece of subhumanity. But take Rummy, Wolfowitz and Gonzalez with you, please. Someday, in a just world, there’ll be a Simon Wiesenthal tracking you down for your war crimes. I just hope they don’t wait till your Pinochet’s age so you can enjoy some quality time in a cage with a bunkie nicknamed ‘Slash’.

• Mercury Rising: Seems that Doug Feith is joining fellow PNACer John Bolton in getting the hell out of Dodge — or at least DC. Unfortunately, Robert Joseph is still there, and he's just as nutty as Bolton. But one would think that if Feith and Bolton, the biggest exponents of “Invade 'Em All - Let God Sort It Out”, weren't willing to stick around for another Bush term, then the DC climate might not as friendly towards the unilateralist deficit-growers and military-busters as it once was. I wonder if the folks at China's central banks might have yanked BushCo's leash? “Don't even think of invading Iran, buddy. We've given you too much free money as it is. Time to pay up.”

• Small Precautions: Of course no one in the Bush regime will represent Feith's resignation as an instance of accountability, but it probably is just that. In addition to his other sterling accomplishments, Feith was one of the main guys promoting the notion (1) that there was a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda; and (2) that regime change in Iraq would be easy. In fact, Feith was so adamant in these beliefs that he allegedly took the risk of leaking a classified memo he himself wrote promoting these ideas. Some predicted that this stunt might earn him a spell in jail, but it appears merely to have cost him his job.

Two MilBlogs, Husband and Wife.

She has just arrived with her unit in Kuwait.
He is a Combat Engineer Sergeant in the 1st Armored, preparing for his second tour in the Sandbox “in the fullness of time”.

His :

The loss of 30 Marines and a sailor (their corpsman?) is tragic.

But here's my question: Where the fuck are all these vampiric reporter assholes when a helicoptor goes down in training? The only reason these cats are on the news at all is because it happened in Iraq and it is another wedge to take a shot at George Bush, the United States of America, and our Iraq mission. Let a bird go down at Ft. Campbell (as they do regularly) and there might be 3 inches of text on the back of page 31.

Flying a helicoptor through a sandstorm is dangerous, whether it be at NTC or in Iraq.

His friends - and I'm honoured to be one of them - don't call him “Full Metal Atkinson” for nothing. He's forthright, and frank.

Hers :

I'm trying to think of things to update with, and there's not much. I'm on a convoy to Doha tonight, and God only knows how long that will take. We've done not much of anything, and it's dusty here, as well as crowded. The lines for everything are unreal.

So far, I'm making it okay, although the silliness is starting to drive me crazy. Yeah, yeah. Short drive.

We have all sorts of folx working on the camp, from Middle Eastern to Latino, and mostly, they all stare. It's kind of unnerving. It's like they haven't seen any of us before. The ME men seem to stare at the female soldiers more than most, and it's almost as though they expect us to be ten feet tall or something odd.

TCP's Iraq page is being stored for posterity by the MINERVA system of the US congressional library. And data archaeologist wanting to know what the extraordinary ordinary soldiers thought in 2005 could do worse than to follow those links.

Eleven Iraqis and one U.S. Marine were killed Thursday as insurgents clashed with U.S. troops and blew up a school slated to serve as a polling center, pre-election violence that followed the deadliest day for U.S. troops since the war's start. Another U.S. soldier died in an accident.

The Marine was killed and five others injured when insurgents launched mortars at their base near Iskandariyah, about 30 miles south of Baghdad.

Australian officials announced that one of two car bombing on Baghdad's dangerous airport road Wednesday had injured eight Australian soldiers riding in a convoy escorting Australian government officials.

More…

A suicide car bomber attacked an office of a major Kurdish party Wednesday, killing or injuring at least 20 people, an official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party said.

The attack occurred at the KDP office in the town of Sinjar, three miles southwest of Mosul, KDP official Mahdi al-Harki said.

“Twenty people were killed or wounded in the suicide attack,” al-Harki said, adding that the explosion caused major damage to the building. He had no further details.

More..

Reuters reports that President Bush urged Iraqis to defy insurgents by voting in Sunday's elections:

“I urge all people to vote. I urge people to defy these terrorists,” Bush told a news conference. “They (the terrorists) have no clear view of a better future. They're afraid of a free society.”

“It is a grand moment for those who believe in freedom,” he added. “I anticipate a grand moment in Iraqi history.”

French authorities arrested four more people Wednesday morning in a round-up of suspected terrorists believed to have been plotting attacks in Iraq.

The arrests followed the detention Monday of seven others who authorities believe were preparing assaults on U.S. forces in Iraq . It was the first operation of its kind by the French government since reports surfaced last year that French citizens or residents were joining the insurgent ranks.

Other arrests have been made throughout Europe – including two detained in Germany on Sunday – of others heading to Iraq.

Details about the four people arrested Wednesday were sketchy. But of the seven initial arrests, two were women.

The seven, whose names were not released, were arrested Monday in Paris, the police said. Under France's anti-terrorism law, they can be held for up to four days before being released or placed under investigation.

Read….

Updating a previous post, from the AFP via The Australian :

More than 30 US marines were killed in a helicopter crash in western Iraq, CNN reported.

US military officials in Baghdad said they could not immediately confirm the toll but acknowledged there were casualties.

UPDATE : From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A US helicopter crashed in Iraq, killing 31 US soldiers, according to CNN and ABC[the US one] television.

It was unclear whether the crash was the result of an accident or whether the helicopter came under attack, CNN reported.
[…]
“A US Marine Corps transport helicopter crashed January 26 at approximately 1:20 am near Ar Rutbah while conducting security and stabilisation operations,” the military said in a statement.

ANALYSIS : The Helicopter is likely a CH-53 Sea Stallion.

Update: CNN is reporting 36 dead.

Update: Reuters via the ABC is confirming it was a CH-53.

US Marines board a CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter similar to the one that crashed killing 31 people. (Reuters)

From the AFP via The Australian :

A US soldier was killed and two others wounded today in an attack on a US patrol north of Baghdad, the US military said in a statement.

”One 1st Infantry Division Soldier was killed and two others wounded when anti-Iraqi forces attacked their combat patrol with rocket propelled grenades near Duluiyah,” the statement said.

One of the wounded was in serious condition.

The Calm before the Storm? Or the result of the rolling-up of several terrorist networks because of the capture of senior Al Qaeda leaders, as previously reported on TCP? Or a bit of both?

From The Australian :

The first warnings of a new phase of violence were issued last night by the deputy director of operations in Iraq for the US military, Air Force Brigadier General Erv Lessel.

Using CNN, the Pentagon's preferred channel for information management, Brigadier General Lessel confirmed that a dramatic 50 per cent reduction in terrorist activity had been seen over recent days, and indicated that a spectacular attack on a key target might be pending.

“We think it's a calm before the storm,” he said. “And that they are unable to sustain the level of attacks they've had, but that they're saving up for something more spectacular in the coming days.”

Security experts say that despite a handful of high-profile attacks, such as Monday's bombing of Dr Allawi's Baghdad party offices, the situation has been relatively calm across the country.

But they stress that intensive military and counter-terror operations have been under way, and say many intended insurgent strikes have been thwarted.

US military teams have been active to the north of Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul, where a large house-to-house operation is being conducted, as well as at the Syrian border town of Tell Afar, a known base for insurgent infiltrators.

Oh, you mean that the 50% reduction in attacks hasn't exactly been widely trumpeted by MSM? Quelle Surprise.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Insurgents have attacked the offices of three political parties north-east of Baghdad, and released a video apparently showing three kidnapped election workers in the latest violence ahead of Sunday's landmark polls.

Elsewhere, police say seven Iraqis have been killed in a car bomb against a police station in the disputed city of Kirkuk.

“Two car bombs exploded this morning in the Riyad neighbourhood in west Kirkuk, one at a police station and another at a local market,” police chief Major General Turhan Yusef said.

He says the attack against the police station has killed three policemen, two soldiers and two civilians.

The blast has also left three policemen wounded.

Major General Yusef says another car bomb attack has targeted a US military convoy near Kirkuk but no more details are immediately available.

In Baquba, a mixed Shiite and Sunni town 65 kilometres north of Baghdad, police say one policemen was killed and at least eight people wounded when gunmen opened fire on the local offices of three parties contesting the polls.
[…]
In the northern city of Mosul, a rebel stronghold that has seen persistent violence, a video filmed by insurgents shows three Iraqi men who have apparently been taken hostage.

The men say they work for Iraq's electoral commission in the city.

On the video, a hooded insurgent carrying a pistol reads out a statement as another masked guerrilla crouches with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher on his shoulder.

“We are mujahideen in the province of Nineveh. What they call elections have no basis in the Islamic religion and that's why we will hit all election centres,” the statement said.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The US military says a marines transport helicopter has crashed in western Iraq and a search and rescue operation is under way.

A statement says casualties would be confirmed later.

The military says the crash happened shortly after midnight in the western desert close to the Jordanian border, but it gave no details on the cause.

All from the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Final Results within 10 days :

Iraq's electoral commission says the result of national elections on Sunday will not be known for 10 days.
[…]
Spokesman Farid Ayar told a news conference that a preliminary result of the election would be released six days after the last voters cast their ballots on Sunday, but that the final official result would take 10 days.

No Arbitrary Deadline For Withdrawal :

Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has rejected the setting of a deadline for the withdrawal of foreign troops from his country.
[…]
“I will not set a final date now because that would be both reckless and dangerous,” Dr Allawi said.

”When we are ready to take that new step we will take it, God willing.”

He described a plan which would see Iraqi forces gradually taking over from the US-led multinational force, allowing them to take a back seat and move out of the major cities.

Handover “As Soon As Possible” but no sooner :

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has hinted that United States and British forces could begin handing over their security operations in large swathes of Iraq to local security forces after this month's elections.

Mr Blair says US and British forces would set “timelines” with the new Iraqi government for a handover of control to Iraqi forces, at least in peaceful parts of their country.

“There are areas where we would be able to hand over to those Iraqi forces. Remember, 14 out of the 18 provinces in Iraq are relatively peaceful and stable,” the Prime Minister told the Financial Times newspaper.

Mr Blair did not give any firm dates for a British pullout, but says the two countries would have a better idea of when to withdraw their troops after the landmark vote on Sunday.

“Both ourselves and the Iraqis want us to leave as soon as possible. The question is what is 'as soon as possible' and the answer to that is: when the Iraqi forces have the capability to do the job,” he said.

Belmont Club has an interesting take on the elections:

But if the fear of a 'Shiite-dominated bloc extending to the Mediterranean' and the policy need to maintain a unitary Iraq by accommodating the minority Sunnis is allowed to repeatedly veto the efforts of those who, after all, have agreed to participate in the American-sponsored process, then the precise thing that Kissinger and Schultz fear may emerge from the frustrations of the opposite quarter. The only thing worse than Sunni disaffection is a Shi'ite and Kurdish belief that they have been betrayed. The storm petrels are already flying.

Also, Power Line lets us know that Iraqis are eager to vote.

Two important blogs to keep a watch on as the Iraq elections loom near:

Friends of Democracy, brought to you by Spirit of America and edited by Michael Totten.

We have more than a dozen local Iraqi correspondents, at least one in each province, filing daily reports. These reports include news, interviews, quotes, photos, whatever they can get in a day. They aren’t professional journalists. They are more or less ordinary Iraqis. Some of them you already know – Omar and Mohammed from Iraq the Model, for example. Others you don’t know because they don’t speak or write in English. Their reports are translated from Arabic before they are uploaded to the reports site.

This is grounbreaking - SoA and Michael are doing in Iraq what we (Command Post) did here during the 2004 election. To have this kind of on-the-ground information flow freely from a place like Iraq is amazing in and of itself. TCP will be looking to the Friends of Democracy blog for up close news about the elections - you can bet we'll be linking to them often.

We'll also be keeping up with Iraq Election Diatribes - a site put forth by a collection of bloggers (including TCP's own SortaPundit) with more of an opionated bent than FoD, but still a worthy read with plenty of news and important information for anyone interested in the elections.

Things MSM isn't reporting - again.

Updating a previous post, this from the blog of PFC Charles Maib, a US Army reporter in Iraq. He's in the 1st Cavalry, and took the intriguing photo below, so this one is literally “straight from the horse's mouth”. :

No one ever sat at the table. The meeting was informal and took place with Kerry leaning against the table and other Soldiers surrounding him. Someone mentioned hockey, and Kerry said he had just been playing ice hockey the other day, and it had aggravated his knee. He ask the troops a few questions. He wanted to know how they felt about the “bait and switch about the WMDs.” He wanted to know if we were angry. The Soldiers responded that they really didn't care about WMDs. Their mission was to protect and to rebuild. Kerry ask about quality of life and morale. The troops responded that it couldn't be better. They watch DVDs and hang out with friends in their spare time. They really have everything they could ask for. He then ask is there was anything that he could tell Congress for us, a message he could deliver. The troops said to spread the word that we are doing good work over here, but CNN, and ABC, and FOX doesn't want to show us rebuilding sewage stations and renovating schools and helping families. They only want to show death.

Military Mavens will note two things about this photo : the mirror-reversed 1st Cavalry patches authorised only in a combat area, “to show that the cavalry never retreats”. And the second thing is that either Specialist Lacourse is quite coincidentally scratching her palm, or giving one of the POW signals for “I am acting under duress”.

We report, you decide. Me, I'm cleaning tea off the keyboard and laughing my head off.

Hat Tip : Blackfive

Update : I'm sure this is just a coincidence, too.

Hat Tip : Cumudgeonly and Sceptical

Michelle Malkin links to the Jawa Report with much more information about Roy Hallums.

Jawa says in part:

Ghaddafi?? Bad words against Bush?? This does not sound like the Roy Hallums as described to me by his family and friends. I'm sure the rifle pointed at his head had something to do with his pleas.

A videotape that surfaced in Baghdad Tuesday shows a missing American, Roy Hallums, pleading at gunpoint for Arab rulers to intercede to spare his life.

The 60-second clip shows an American man seated against a black background with a gun to his head. He had his legs crossed and was rubbing his hands together as he appealed to the camera.

Hallums, 56, was seized Nov. 1 along with Robert Tarongoy of the Philippines during an armed assault on their compound in Baghdad's Al-Mansour district. Both are missing.

The two were working for a Saudi company that does catering for the Iraqi army. USA Today, in a December article about Hallums, identified it as the Saudi Arabian Trading and Construction Company, based in Riyadh.

On the new tape, Hallums, with a rifle pointed at his head, stated his name and said “I have worked with American forces.”

Read more…

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Iraqis living abroad have shown little enthusiasm for Sunday's landmark vote, despite international efforts to woo them to polling stations for the first time since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The body organising the out-of-country voting, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), has extended the deadline for expatriate Iraqis to register for the vote by 48 hours to 7:00pm on Tuesday.

The IOM says that, so far, 237,704 expatriate Iraqis have registered at special voting centres set up in 14 countries - a far cry from its expected registration tally of closer to 1 million.
[…]
“We had much less time to prepare than we had for Afghanistan,” the IOM head of the Jordan-based operation, Peter Erben, said.

“We only had 67 days… until registration opened. So with 14 countries to get ready and 7,000 employees in place it was really a significant challenge.”

The week-long registration period opened on January 17 in 36 cities across Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Iran, Jordan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and United States.

“The environment is entirely different. In the Afghan operation we worked mostly with refugees based in camps, this time we are working mostly with urban refugees,” said IOM's Lazhar Aloui.

From the BBC :

Due to international time differences, the first overseas registrations for Iraq's elections took place in Sydney and in the southern state of Victoria.
[…]
There are a handful of election centres in Sydney, the country's biggest city, and others in Victoria.

Many Iraqis living across the other side of the Australian continent in Perth or further north in Queensland will have to undertake a long and expensive journey to register and then return later to vote.

The vast distances may effectively disenfranchise some Iraqis.

It's like Los Angeles residents having their nearest voting centres in Norfolk, Boston and Philadelphia. Or London residents having to travel to Moscow, Ankara, or Cairo.

Bernie Hogan from the Out of Country Voting Programme has blamed a lack of time and money.

”It just was an impossible thing to do in the very limited time that we've had,” he said.

See related Op-Ed article.

From CENTCOM :

With an eye to the upcoming Iraqi national elections, Joint Coordination Centers in the Salah Ad Din Province, along with the Provincial Joint Coordination Center and other Iraqi entities, participated in a readiness exercise Jan 17 to 19.

The 2nd Brigade Combat Team's civil affair's section and Salah Ad Din Provincial Joint Coordination Center hosted the readiness exercise at the PJCC in Tikrit.

The local JCCs in the cities of Ash Sharqat, Bayji, Tikrit, Ad Dawr, Samarra, Balad, Ad Dujayl, Ad Duliyah and Tuz participated in the three-day event. In addition, the Iraqi Police Service, Iraqi Army, Iraqi Army bomb disposal units, Force Protection Services, International Election Commission for Iraq, Iraqi Ministry of Health and various emergency services also took part.

The goal of the exercise was “to prepare the Provincial JCC and the local JCCs in the major cities of Salah Ad Din Province for the upcoming Iraqi National Elections,” said Master Sgt. Terry L. McKinney, 2nd BCT's PJCC liaison officer.
[…]
Three goals were achieved by holding the readiness exercise, he said. Communications between the provincial and local JCCs were vastly improved, response time for emergency services increased [sic] and Iraqi Security Forces are ready to respond to anti-Iraqi forces threats and secure election sites throughout the province.

Although this was the fourth time such a readiness exercise was held, the PJCC liaison officer said it was significant because the event focused on “synchronizing all the efforts from governmental and security elements in the province to communicate and work together.”

From CENTCOM :

In Mosul :

Soldiers from the Iraqi Army's 1st Division, 1st Battalion, received mortar fire in Mosul on Jan. 21.

The Soldiers observed insurgents firing a mortar from about 500 meters away and engaged the enemy with direct fire. They found one abandoned 82 mm mortar tube and captured an insurgent.

While searching a house in the vicinity, Iraqi Soldiers engaged the enemy again and captured one insurgent who was using a cell phone to provide positions for attacks. A search of a nearby school yielded one sniper rifle.

In Al Anbar :

Marines and Soldiers from the 1st Marine Division of the I Marine Expeditionary Force detained 59 suspected insurgents and seized several weapons caches during operations throughout Al Anbar Province over the past 48 hours.

Weapons and munitions seized included a rocket-propelled grenade round, two RPG launchers, four AK-47 assault rifles, 10 AK-47 magazines, a pistol, 70 mortar fuses, 71 primers, 70 mortar rounds, 30 grenade fuses, a flame thrower and bomb-making material.

A car, boat and insurgent propaganda were also seized with the weapons and munitions.

And in Mosul again :

Multi-National Forces from 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), detained forty-two people during operations in northern Iraq on Jan. 22.

Soldiers of 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, detained forty-one people suspected of anti-Iraqi activity while conducting cordon and search operations north of Mosul. Suspects are in custody with no MNF injuries reported.

Soldiers of 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, detained an individual suspected of anti-Iraqi activity in eastern Mosul. Suspect is in custody with no MNF injuries reported.

From CENTCOM :

A 1st Cavalry Division Soldier was convicted on Jan. 22 of one count of involuntary manslaughter and one count of making a false statement during a general court martial at the division's courthouse.

Spc. Charley L. Hooser, Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, was sentenced to three years confinement, reduction to the lowest enlisted pay grade (private/E-1) and given a bad conduct discharge.

The convictions stem from an incident on Nov. 24, when Hooser killed an interpreter, shooting her in the head. Later that day, he made an official statement with the intent to deceive, denying involvement in the death of the civilian interpreter.

Also from CENTCOM :

A 1st Cavalry Division Soldier was convicted on January 22 of one count of making a false statement and one count of accessory-after-the-fact involuntary manslaughter during a general court martial at the division's courthouse here.

Spc. Rami Dajani, Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion 9th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, pleaded guilty to both charges. He chose a trial by military judge alone, rather than by court members.

Dajani was also charged with one count of involuntary manslaughter, which was later dropped.

The convictions stem from a Nov. 24, 2004, incident, when Dajani supplied a handgun to a fellow Soldier who then killed an interpreter by shooting her in the head. Later that day, Dajani made an official statement with the intent to deceive, denying involvement in the death of a civilian interpreter.

The judge spent one hour deliberating and returned with a decision to sentence Dajani to 18 months confinement, reduction to the lowest enlisted pay grade (private/E-1) and a bad conduct discharge.

From these reports, it was reckless behaviour, an accidental killing, then a cover-up. Comparable to a drunk driver committing a hit-and-run.

From Reuters via the ABC :

A senior general says the US Army is now planning to keep at least 120,000 troops in Iraq for the next two years to train and fight with Iraqi forces against insurgents.

The Army total, which could be reduced before 2007 as more Iraqi forces become trained to handle security, is part of a current force of 150,000 American soldiers, marines and other troops now in Iraq.
[…]
“That's right,” Gen Lovelace told a group of reporters when asked if current contingency plans now called for keeping 120,000 Army troops in Iraq for the next two one-year rotations.

“We are planning for what's the most probable case. A worst-case (scenario) would be a lot more,” Army troops, Gen Lovelace added.

But he stressed that the number of Army troops in Iraq could fall depending on the effectiveness of the more intense US training of the Iraqis.

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Human Rights Watch says Iraqi forces have tortured detainees with electric shocks to their genitals and by beating them with cables and fists.
[…]
The report is based on interviews with 90 detainees in Iraq, including 72 who claim to have been tortured or ill-treated, particularly under interrogation.

The group conducted the investigation between July and October 2004.
[…]
“While insurgent forces have committed numerous unlawful attacks against the Iraqi police, this does not justify the abuses committed by Iraqi authorities,” Human Rights Watch said.

The detainees say the methods of tortures include “routine beatings to the body using cables, hosepipe and other implements”.

“Detainees report kicking, slapping and punching; prolonged suspension from the wrists with the hands tied behind the back; electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body, including the earlobes and genitals,” the report said.

The detainees also report being kept blindfolded and handcuffed for several consecutive days.

“In several cases, the detainees suffered what may be permanent physical disability,” the group said.

Detainees also reported being deprived of food and water and that Iraqi police sought bribes in return for their release.

The group says human rights violations have been committed since 2003 against suspected insurgents and common criminals.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The [Australian] Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) and the Defence Department have launched an investigation into an incident in Baghdad in which Australian soldiers shot an Iraqi civilian near the Australian embassy.

The shooting happened after Australian guards in the partly-completed multi-storey building, which is their barracks and lookout post next to the embassy, saw a suspicious vehicle pull up.

The Defence Department says the man in the vehicle ignored repeated shouted warnings from the soldiers.

He was shot and wounded after he left the vehicle, and taken was taken away by Iraqi authorities.

It is just a week since a suicide truck bomber targeted the Australian embassy, killing two Iraqis and wounding two Australian soldiers.

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Five US soldiers have died in a road accident north of Baghdad.

”Five 1st Infantry Division soldiers died and two were injured in a vehicle accident near Khan Bani Saad,” a military statement said.

One of the wounded is in serious condition.

The deaths raise the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq to 1,373 since the March 2003 invasion, 296 of them in non-combat incidents, according to the latest figures from the Pentagon.

Fierce clashes in eastern Baghdad left at least 11 Iraqi policemen dead Tuesday, a hospital official said, and gunmen assassinated a senior Iraqi judge in a series of slayings that highlight the grave security risks in the run-up to this weekend's elections.

Fighting erupted in Baghdad's eastern Rashad neighborhood as Iraqi police fired on insurgents who were handing out leaflets warning people not to vote in Sunday's national elections.

About the same time and in the same neighborhood, insurgents opened fire on police who were checking out a report of a possible car bomb. Seven police died in the ambush, according to policeman Khazim Hussein.

More…

Gunmen assassinated a senior Iraqi judge and killed his bodyguard on Tuesday in a series of shootings of government employees and policemen that highlight the serious security risks ahead in the days before this weekend's elections.

[…]

The slain judge was identified as Qais Hashim Shameri, secretary general of the judges council in the Justice Ministry. Assailants sprayed his car with bullets in an attack that also wounded the judge's driver.

Assailants also shot dead a man who worked for a district council in western Baghdad as he was on his way to work, police said.

More…

From the AFP via The Australian :

Iraq said today the arrest of two lieutenants of Islamic extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of whom was said to be plotting election day attacks and was implicated in the 2003 bombing of the UN Baghdad headquarters.

”Iraqi security forces arrested January 15 Sami Mohammad Said al-Jaf, also known as Abu Omar al-Kurdi, who was one of Zarqawi's deputies,” the government said in a statement.

“Abu Omar al-Kurdi was responsible for 32 attacks including the (August 2003) car bombing” of the UN headquarters in Baghdad that killed more 20 people including UN representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Kurdi was planning attacks on polling stations in Baghdad for election day, the statement said.

A second man identified as Hassan Hamad Abdullah Mohsen al-Duleimi who was in charge of “propaganda” for Zarqawi, was arrested on January 14.

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Supporters of Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, have executed an Egyptian driver on an Iraqi street in broad daylight, according to a video shown on a web site.

The grisly video shows a young man, identified as Ibrahim Mohamed Ismail, on his knees, handcuffed and blindfolded on a street.

A masked man shoots him in the head.

Mr Ismail was shown earlier saying he worked for a Kuwaiti company identified as Al-Shallahi, which provides US forces with drinking water.

He urged urging his compatriots not to come to Iraq or work for the Americans.

“Despite all the warnings from the mujahedeen… these apostates continue to help the occupier shed the blood of those who refuse to submit,” the militants, identifying themselves as members of Zarqawi's Al Qaeda Group in the Land of Two Rivers, said.

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The US military said American and Iraqi security forces have rounded up more than 100 suspected insurgents since Saturday, ramping up efforts to thwart rebels trying to wreck Iraq's national elections being held in one week's time.

The detainees included a suspect picked up in Baghdad and billed as one of Iraq's top 10 most wanted.

Declining to name the individual, the military admitted it was neither Abu Musab al-Zarqawi nor Saddam Hussein's henchman Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri.
[…]
In the northern city of Mosul, US forces said they had detained 42 people…
[…]
Another 59 suspects were rounded up by US marines around the restive city of Ramadi.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

In the latest bloodshed, three teachers from a technical oil college died in a roadside bombing north of the oil refinery town of Baiji.

Police said a married couple and their daughter were also hit by a bomb blast that targeted an Iraqi military convoy near Baiji.

The mother and daughter were killed. The husband was seriously wounded.

One insurgent and three Iraqi soldiers were also killed in a firefight in Baiji.
[…]
Attackers blew up a school used as a voting centre in the town of Albu Alwan.

No one was inside when the attackers levelled the building.

An Iraqi soldier was killed by gunmen as he entered his home in Tuz Khurmatu, north of Tikrit, while three other soldiers were wounded in a firefight near Ad-Dawr, north of Samarra, where Saddam was captured in 2003.

A poster on a street in Ad-Dawr signed by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi's group Al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers claimed to have blown up the town's local council building on Saturday.

“The resistance has destroyed one of the lairs of the spies and collaborators. May the world be warned that he who gives his hand to the occupier and apostate will be punished,” the poster read.

The statement also said the group was responsible for firing 10 mortars at a joint US-Iraqi security centre, but police said no one was hurt in the attack.

Meanwhile, rebels blew up a police station in the western town of Hit.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A car bomb has exploded at the edge of the heavily guarded Green Zone in Baghdad, near the headquarters of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Medical sources say that two people have been killed and 10 wounded in the blast.

The group of Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has claimed responsibility for the bombing, which occurred at a checkpoint.

“A lion of the martyrs brigade of the Al Qaeda Group in the Land of Two Rivers this morning attacked the headquarters of the Iraq National Accord of Iyad Allawi, the agent of Jews and Christians in Baghdad,” a statement posted on an Islamist web site said.

The authenticity of the statement could not be verified.
[…]
A policeman told AFP: “Around 8:45, a man driving an explosives-laden vehicle rammed into the checkpoint guarding the entrance of the street and blew himself up.”

A spokesman for Dr Allawi says the Prime Minister was not in the area at the time of the blast.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The Al Qaeda linked group of Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab al Zawqawi, claims to have killed a leading member of the party of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

A statement on the group's website claimed it had executed Salem Jaafar al Kanani, who was private secretary to Prime Minister Allawi and a candidate for his party at next Sunday's parliamentary elections.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister confirmed that Dr Kanani, who was described as the director of the political office of the Prime Minister's party, was kidnapped on Wednesday as he stepped out of a minibus near his home in Baghdad.

His kidnappers had demanded a ransom of $100,000.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The United States has confirmed that it is investigating reports that $300 million in US currency was secretly flown out of Iraq to Lebanon, allegedly to buy weapons from arms dealers.

The allegation has been at the centre of a nasty public spat between the interim Defence Minister, Hazim al-Shaalan, and the leading politician and former US favourite Ahmed Chalabi.

The US Ambassador John Negroponte told CNN that he was unsure if the money was missing or had been used to buy weapons.

Over the weekend the the Defence Minister threatened to arrest Dr Chalabi who heads the Iraqi National Congress after he raised questions about the propriety of the shadowy removal of hundreds of thousands of dollars to Lebanon aboard a military flight.

He suggested the money subsequently went missing.

The government says the money was sent to buy tanks and other heavy weaponry to put together an armoured division for the Iraqi military.

From the BBC :

The US military is planning to deploy robots armed with machine-guns to wage war against insurgents in Iraq.

Eighteen of the 1m-high robots, equipped with cameras and operated by remote control, are going to Iraq this spring, the Associated Press reports.
[…]
However, the robot will rely on its human operator, remotely studying footage from its cameras, for the order to open fire.

According to Bob Quinn, a manager with Foster-Miller, the US-based company which worked with the military to develop the robot, the only difference for a soldier is that “his weapon is not at his shoulder, it's up to half a mile away”.

The robot fighter has been christened Swords, after the acronym for Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems.

Via Belmont Club:

Neil Prakash, AKA blogger Armor Geddon and a 1ID Armor Officer, won the Silver Star for his actions in Baquba, Iraq.

Via NWO Realpolitik we find this Centre for Research on Globalisation article titled Iraqi Elections: Farce of the Century by Felicity Arbuthnot.

Registration for ex-patriate Iraqis to vote in the Iraq elections began on Monday in fourteen countries - Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Iran, Jordan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, and runs until January 23. However, according to a renowned expert on international law, Sabah Al Mukhtar, the London based President of the League of Arab Lawyers, the election is not alone fatally flawed, it is illegal.

That's the lead. You can read the rest.

Not much discussion of this article yet in the Blogosphere … although Felicity's work has been kicking around for some time …

Chrenkoff has produced an excellent “who's who” of the upcoming Iraqi election. A sample:

The Iraqi National Unity Grouping - led by Nihru Muhammad Abd al-Karim al-Kasanzan al-Husayni, the Grouping strives for a national reconciliation and good relations among the many Iraqi ethnic and political groups. The Grouping supports a federal Kurdistan. The Iraqi Independents Bloc - led by Dr. Ghassan Al-Attiya, has a similar program of national reconciliation.

The National Democratic Party - is fielding 48 candidates, including Naseer Kamel al-Chaderchi, son of a prominent Iraqi monarchist. Some commentators indicate the Party enjoys a degree of support among the educated Sunni middle class.

The People's Union - will field 275 candidates drawn from secular and left-wing Iraqis. Opposed to strong religious influence in politics, needless to say, this group includes many women.

The National Democratic Coalition list - headed by Tawfiq Al-Yassiri, who in the past organised anti-terrorism marches in Baghdad. It also includes current Justice Minister, Dr. Malik Dohan Al-Hassan.

Mudville Gazette, who links to Chrenkoff, also points to MEMRI's set of election video, and the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq.

Via an email from TIME:

Members of Congressional Armed-Services Committees Are Being Warned Privately by Uniformed Officers to Expect At Least 100,000 U.S. Troops to Remain in Iraq Perhaps Through 2006

There's also this:

U.S. forces are rounding up 1,000 suspected insurgents a week, and they will continue to stay on the hunt, according to a senior U.S. commander in Iraq.

The Philly Inquirer's Trudy Rubin has a first-person account of General David Petraeus' efforts to rebuild the Iraqi army.

We travel through Mosul inside heavily armored Stryker vehicles where the only view of city streets is on the TV monitor below the gunner's turret.

We visit one of the Interior Ministry's enthusiastic new police commando units composed of former Iraqi army special forces. They may be best suited to fighting the insurgents, but they can't do it alone.

The Stryker speeds us to the Al-Kindi base, where a new Iraqi division headquarters was set up three months ago and is being fleshed out. Fighters from one of the Kurdish battalions tell me, with graphic motions: “Kurds good, Arabs not good.”

Then to provincial headquarters, where the governor embraces Petraeus warmly over a table laden with grilled fish and lamb. The governor's son and his predecessor were assassinated. Here's proof that moderate Sunni leaders can be wooed into a new political system. But few will risk it under current conditions.

Then by helicopter to Al-Kisik division headquarters outside Mosul, a huge, isolated complex built under Saddam Hussein, looted after the U.S. invasion, then rebuilt with U.S. funds. The challenge here is keeping new recruits. With no bank system in place, soldiers return home monthly to take money to their families, and many never return. The depleted ranks are now being refilled with former Iraqi soldiers.

How to assess all this?

Back in Baghdad, Petraeus tells me: “We are trying to gather momentum.”

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi continues to taunt the Iraqi community in a tape released today on the Internet. In the tape Zarqawi threatens violence on Election Day January 30, 2005, and declared a "bitter war". He has called anyone who votes in the country an "infidel" and is encouraging the Sunni minority to fight against the elections. This is a definite attempt to incite a civil war in the country by the terrorist leader of the group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Reuters

"We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it," a speaker identified as Zarqawi said in an audio tape on the Internet on Sunday.

"Candidates in elections are seeking to become demi-gods while those who vote for them are infidels. And with God as my witness, I have informed them (of our intentions)," he said.

...

"Oh people of Iraq, where is your honour? Have you accepted oppression of the crusader harlots ... and the rejectionist pigs?" he said on the audio tape.

...

The latest tape included a tirade against democracy, which the speaker described as fundamentally un-Islamic and a "lie" the United States was using to brainwash Muslims.

The U.S. still has a $25 million reward on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but there has been no one that has come forward so far. Yesterday, two Iraqi truck drivers were beheaded by al-Zarqawi's group for working with a firm that transported to U.S. bases and there was a bold daytime capture and beheading of a police officer in the streets of Ramadi.

For more on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, see the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi category list of stories on Diggers Realm.

Originally posted at Diggers Realm

The Associated Press reports that Iraq's interior minister on Saturday refused to comment on rumors that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in custody:

“I wouldn't like to comment for the time being,” Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib said when asked about rumors that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been arrested. “Let's see. Maybe in the next few days we will make a comment about it.”

Pressing him, a reporter asked, “Does that mean he is in custody?”

“No comment,” the minister repeated.

From California Yankee.

An Iraqi insurgent group said in a Web statement posted Saturday that it had killed 15 Iraqi National Guard members seized this month off a bus northwest of Baghdad, accusing them of collaborating with U.S. forces.

“After the investigation, they confessed to the crimes they have committed with the crusader forces against civilians and mujahedeen,” the Ansar al-Sunnah group said in the statement. “With God's help, God's verdict has been carried out against them by shooting them … They should be a lesson to others.”

The claim could not be independently verified, and the statement contained no photographs

More….

U.S. Marines, Soldiers Detain 36 Suspected Insurgents :

arines and Soldiers from the 1^st Marine Division of the I Marine Expeditionary Force detained 36 suspected insurgents and discovered several weapons caches during operations throughout Al Anbar Province during the last 48 hours.

The following weapons and munitions were discovered:

(2) RPG rounds
(6) AK-47 assault rifles
(2) Sniper rifles
(1) 9mm pistol
(1) RPK machinegun
(1) PKM machinegun
(1) .50 caliber machinegun…..

…an anti-aircraft machine gun, documents, explosives, mortar rounds etc etc

Iraqi Army's 306^th Battalion takes over portion of Sadr City :

The Iraqi Army's 306th Battalion, 40^th Brigade, an element of the 1^st Brigade Combat Team, 1^st Cavalry Division, assumed responsibility for security operations in a portion of the Sadr City area.
[…]
Several areas throughout the country have been transferred to Iraqi Security Forces in the last few months, moving toward the ultimate Multi-National Forces goal of an autonomous Iraqi Security Force and Iraqi government.

The transfer was very timely, [306^th Commander Lt. Col.] Hussein said

“The transfer is very important, especially for the elections,” he said through an interpreter. “There is a great need for the people to know that the U.S. is transferring authority to the Iraqi Army.”

Security operations are nothing new to the Soldiers of the 306^th. The unit has been working in the Sadr City area with 2-5 Cavalry on raids, patrols and checkpoints, aiding in the capture of numerous terrorists, insurgents and weapons caches.

“My men have gained a lot of experience,” he said. “Our friends, the Americans have given us a lot of training. I'm positive my men are ready. The elections will be a test. We are determined to pass this crisis successfully.”

201^st Iraqi Army Sodiers detain AIF suspect :

201^st Iraqi Army Soldiers detained an anti-Iraqi force suspect at a traffic control point in northern Tikrit at about 11:10 a.m., January 20. The individual is suspected of funding insurgent cells in the Tikrit area.

Insurgents attack from Mosque, One detained :

Multi-National Forces from 1^st Brigade, 25^th Infantry Division (Striker Combat Team), and Iraqi Security Forces were fired upon by anti-Iraqi insurgents from a mosque in northern Iraq on Jan. 21.

Iraqi Intervention Forces and Soldiers from 3^rd Battalion, 21^st Infantry Regiment, were patrolling in eastern Mosul when their convoy came under attack by anti-Iraqi insurgents firing from the Al Sabrine Mosque. The IIF conducted a cordon and search of the mosque. They detained an individual, and found and confiscated weapons. The suspect is in custody with no ISF or MNF injuries reported.

Marines capture Two, uncover weapons cache south of Baghdad :

Elements of the 24^th Marine Expeditionary Unit captured two suspected militants and uncovered a weapons stockpile south of Baghdad January 21, the third day of the latest anti-insurgent operation in northern Babil Province.

Intelligence gleaned from a January 19 raid in the south-central town of Jabella led Marines to a site south of nearby Haswah. A search of the area turned up the following:

(19) 130 mm mortar rounds
(11) 125 mm mortar rounds
(42) 82 mm mortar rounds…..

…complete mortars, explosives, a Kevlar vest etc etc….

Elsewhere in the province, Marines detained an Iraqi police officer suspected of aiding insurgents involved in ambushing Iraqi and U.S. forces with roadside bombs. The officer is being detained for questioning.

Nineteen detained in Joint raid near Balad :

Task Force Danger and Iraqi Army soldiers detained 19 individuals in a raid near Balad at about 12 p.m., January 21. The information-based raid was conducted to capture a wanted anti-Iraqi force member. While on-site a man was seen running into a nearby mosque. Iraqi Army Soldiers searched the mosque and detained 19 individuals. The detainees were taken to Multi-National Force facilities for questioning.

Eight suspected Insurgents detained in Operations near Mosul :

Multi-National Forces from 1^st Brigade, 25^th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), detained eight people during operations in northern Iraq on Jan. 21.

Soldiers of 2nd Squadron, 14^th Cavalry Regiment, detained five people suspected of anti-Iraqi activity in eastern Mosul. Suspects are in custody with no MNF injuries reported.

Soldiers of 1st Battalion, 24^th Infantry Regiment, detained two people suspected of anti-Iraqi activity while conducting a cordon and search operation in western Mosul. They also confiscated Iraqi and U.S. money, and weapons from the individuals. Suspects are in custody with no MNF injuries reported.

Soldiers of 1-24^th were patrolling in southwestern Mosul later in the day when their convoy was hit with a roadside bomb. They conducted a cordon and search of the area detaining an individual suspected of being associated with the bomb. The suspect is in custody with no MNF injuries reported.

Military officials have said the Mosul area is becoming safer with each seizure and removal of dangerous weapons and detention of anti-Iraqi insurgents. Since Jan. 5 Iraqi Security Forces and Multi-National Forces have detained 207 people and confiscated numerous weapons and munitions.

From the Washington Post :

An overwhelming majority of Iraqis continue to say they intend to vote on Jan. 30 even as insurgents press attacks aimed at rendering the elections a failure, according to a new public opinion survey.

The poll, conducted in late December and early January for the International Republican Institute, found 80 percent of respondents saying they were likely to vote, a rate that has held roughly steady for months.

The 64 percent who said they were “very likely” to vote represented a dip of about 7 percentage points from a November survey, while those “somewhat likely” to vote increased 5 points.

Western specialists involved with election preparations said they were struck by the determination and resilience of ordinary Iraqis as they anticipate their country's first free election in half a century.

To state the obvious.

From the BBC via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has admitted it will be impossible to provide full security for parliamentary elections at the end of the month.

His comments coincide with two attacks in which more than 20 people have been killed.

In both bombs Shiites were the targets.
[…]
This is a Muslim holiday, a celebration.

Worshippers had just been leaving a mosque in south-western Baghdad when the first bomb went off.

The second bomb was at a wedding party.

A doctor at a nearby hospital said it had been driven in an ambulance.
[…]
Mr Allawi praised the security plan drafted by his Government and the coalition forces as comprehensive, but said still there are some gaps, but this is what is possible and what is available.

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporatuion) :

An Islamist group linked to the Al Qaeda network, Ansar al-Sunna, claims that it shot dead 15 members of the Iraqi army, in a statement published on its Internet site.

”After having announced the kidnapping of 15 Iraqi apostate soldiers in the region of Hit, and after their interrogation, they confessed to the crimes they committed with the crusader forces against civilians and against the Mujahedeen,” said the statement posted on an Islamist website.

“They were executed with bullets so that they serve as an example,” added the statement, whose authenticity could not be verified.

On January 15, the group claimed in an Internet statement that it abducted the 15 Iraqi national guardsmen west of Baghdad.

Iraq police had said 15 Iraqi soldiers were kidnapped by gunmen after finishing work at a US military base in the lawless western province of Al-Anbar.
[…]
Ansar al-Sunna split from radical group Ansar al-Islam, both of which are believed to have links with suspected Al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most-wanted man.

See immediately preceeding post for perspective.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A Danish intelligence officer and four military policemen have been charged with abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Danish headquarters in southern Iraq, the Danish Army says.

Reserve Captain Annemette Hommel and the four other soldiers could face up to one year in prison if found guilty of breaking military law during interrogations last year.

Capt Hommel was sent home from Iraq in July, before her tour of duty was up, after former unit colleagues complained about the way she interrogated prisoners.

She has denied the abuse.

Army investigators have said Capt Hommel subjected Iraqi prisoners to ill-treatment, including verbal humiliation, forcing them to maintain painful postures, and restricting access to food, water and toilets.

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A member of the Italian military contingent in Iraq has been killed in the city of Nasiriyah when his helicopter came under fire.

The soldier was rushed to a hospital, where he died of his wounds.
[…]
The aircraft had been on a patrol along the Euphrates river south of Nasiriyah when it drew fire.

ANSA reports tension has been high in the city, where a Portuguese patrol had been shot at before the incident involving the Italian troops.

Italy has deployed 3,000 troops in southern Iraq.

Iraq's Defense Minister said that Ahmed Chalabi is to be arrested today for allegedly defaming the Defense Ministry. Legal proceedings could begin as early as tommorow after the end of the Eid al-Adha holidays. Chalabi has also been accused of passing intelligence secrets to Iran.

Boston Globe

[Defense Minister Hazem] Shaalan's statement followed allegations by Chalabi that the defense minister shifted hundreds of millions of dollars from the ministry. That has led to charges and countercharges by the two Shi'ite politicians, who are running for parliament on separate tickets in the Jan. 30 national elections.

Iraqi officials said $300 million was taken out of Iraq's Central Bank and flown to Lebanon earlier this month, The New York Times reported in today's editions. The money was to be used to buy tanks and other equipment for the Iraqi Army from international arms dealers, but precisely what the money was to be used for and who the suppliers are remain a mystery to Iraqis, the Times said.

Al-Jazeera television quoted Shaalan as saying Chalabi would be turned over to Interpol because of his 1992 conviction in absentia by a Jordanian court for embezzling funds from a Jordanian bank, which collapsed in 1989.

Chalabi, who founded the bank, has denied any wrongdoing and says the charges were fabricated because of his opposition to ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

Originally posted at Diggers Realm

Insurgents in Iraq released eight Chinese laborers they had taken hostage, after China advised its nationals to stay away from the war-torn country.

A video made by the captors and seen by Reuters showed the eight men standing or kneeling in two rows in the desert, holding their passports open.

“Based on the goodwill gesture by the Chinese government, which included a state ban on Chinese entering Iraq, the Numaan Brigades have decided to release the eight,” the speaker on the tape said.

China's embassy in Baghdad later confirmed that the eight had been released, the official Xinhua news agency said. On the tape, a man with his face covered with a traditional checkered headdress shook hands with each of the hostages before they walked off camera.

The speaker in the video said no ransom had been paid and the hostages had not been harmed during their captivity.

More…

A broad daylight beheading in the streets of Baghdad. Beheadings in public have happened in Mosul, but this is in the middle of Baghdad on the street in the middle of the day!

Kuna

Witnesses said here Friday that a number of gunmen beheaded a policeman and stuck a note on his corpse describing as traitors those working with or helping the police.

About ten gunmen in two cars in the Ramadi area stepped out of their vehicles, attacked a soldier, tied his hands behind his back, and cut his head off before the eyes of shocked onlookers in the street, the witnesses said.

Tipped by: Ramblings' Journal

Update (12:42 PM PST):

Reuters (via Outside The Beltway)

Militants loyal to al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi beheaded an Iraqi soldier in a rebel stronghold in broad daylight on Friday and left a note warning other Iraqi troops to quit, witnesses said. They said nine men pulled up in two cars to the center of Ramadi, dragged the soldier out of one of the vehicles and cut off his head as residents looked on.

They left the body, dressed in army fatigues, in the street with the severed head placed on the torso.

A note was found at the scene purporting to be from Zarqawi's group, Al Qaeda Organization of Holy War in Iraq, warning Iraqi soldiers, National Guards and police that a similar fate awaited them.

Other Commentary:

In The Bullpen

Originally posted at Diggers Realm

South of Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonated a booby-trapped ambulance Friday at a wedding party being thrown by the Shiite Buamer tribe in a village near Youssifiyah, killing at least seven people and injuring 16, hospital officials said.

A car bomb exploded outside a Shiite mosque in Baghdad Friday where worshippers were celebrating a major Muslim holiday, killing at least 14 people and wounding 40, police and hospital officials said, the country's latest violence in the lead-up to this month's elections.

The car blew up outside the al-Taf mosque in the capital's southwest, where Shiites were celebrating one of Islam's most important holidays, Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice. The feast coincides with the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia .

Read more..

From the AFP via The Australian :

The 48-hour deadline given by Islamist insurgents for Beijing to “clarify” its position on Iraq expired this afternoon, with no word on the fate of the eight Chinese they are holding.

The Chinese embassy in Baghdad declined to comment on the situation when the apparent deadline expired at around 3pm (11pm AEDT Thursday).

The Xinhua news agency earlier reported that Chinese diplomats were in talks with the Committee of Muslim Scholars and confident the eight would be freed.

But the influential body of conservative Sunni clerics, which mediated the liberation of foreign hostages in the past, gave no information on the reported negotiations.

Kidnappers released footage on Tuesday to Al-Jazeera television of the eight hostages holding Chinese passports, and claimed they were helping the US military build facilities in Iraq.

Beijing opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 but like other nations, its companies have been pursuing lucrative reconstruction contracts in the war-ravaged country.

From CENTCOM :

Task Force Baghdad Soldiers destroyed two buildings in the north Babil region south of the Iraqi capital, reputed to have been used by insurgents to intimidate, torture and kill members of the local populace.

”These buildings were known 'slaughter houses',” said Lt. Col. James Hutton, spokesman for the 1st Cavalry Division and Task Force Baghdad.

Hutton said the site of the buildings, south of the town of Mahmuhdiyah, was formerly a military communications facility under Saddam Hussein's regime.

“This operation demonstrates to the local populace that we are committed to freeing them from the grasp of fear,” Hutton said. “The insurgent feeds off of the fear of others. But the insurgent knows his options are running out.”

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The trial in Germany of British soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners has been halted at the request of the defence.

”The trial has been halted because of the defence application,” Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman said without elaborating.

Photos published this week, including some that show the soldiers, appear to show naked detainees being forced to simulate anal and other sex acts.

Mr Blair, a staunch advocate of the US-led Iraq invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, has told Parliament he found the pictures “shocking and appalling”.

The case echoes the scandal involving US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which severely tarnished the US's image in the Arab world and elsewhere.

“While we express in a unified way our disgust at those pictures, I hope that we do not allow that to tarnish the good name, fully deserved, of our British armed forces,” Mr Blair said.

Photos plastered across British newspapers show an Iraqi man dangling from a forklift truck and a soldier with his foot raised over a bound Iraqi lying in a puddle of water.

The last lot of such snsational photos to appear in UK papers were fakes. These may be genuine. Under UK law, publication of them, regardless of authenticity, may be deemed to prevent a fair trial. The Prime Minister's comments could also be deemed prejudicial.

UPDATE : From the AFP via the ABC :

The judge leading a court martial of three British soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi civilians appealed has for no further public comments to be made about the case.

”I would ask that care be taken by those who find it necessary to make public statements,” judge advocate Michael Hunter said.

The seven military officers who are acting as a jury were absent during his comments.

Mr Hunter says anyone wishing to comment on the case should “seek legal advice”.

However, the judge says that British Prime Minister Tony Blair “could not sensibly refuse” to address the issue of photographs apparently showing soldiers abusing Iraqi civilians which form the main evidence in this case.
[…]
The seven-member panel of officers was then allowed back into the court at a military barracks in Osnabrueck.

Public proceedings resumed for the third day of the court martial.

No evidence had been heard in the morning session because of legal arguments.

Corporal Daniel Kenyon, 33, and Lance Corporals Darren Larkin, 30, and Mark Cooley, 25, face a total of nine charges ranging from assault to forcing detainees to simulate sexual acts.

The soldiers, all members of the Royal Fusiliers regiment, had been working as part of Operation Ali Baba to set up at a food depot near Basra in southern Iraq.

As reported earlier in a previous post and comments.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Acting Prime Minister John Anderson says Australia will not be withdrawing any troops from Iraq following a bomb attack near the Australian embassy in Baghdad.

Mr Anderson says security for Australian personnel at the embassy is under constant review, but believes the current arrangements were able to keep casualties from the blast to a minimum.

Two Australian soldiers suffered minor injuries, and the Al Qaeda group, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has taken responsibility for the bombings, in a statement on the Internet.

Mr Anderson will not confirm the attack was specifically aimed at Australians.

“The facts do suggest that we may very well have been the target, but we can't confirm that,” he said.

“We certainly would not accept prima facie from websites claiming responsibility from the sort of people who think it's wonderful to claim credit for outright brutal murder.”

On Channel Nine, the commander of Australia's forces in Iraq, Air Commodore Greg Evans, thanked those who came to Australia's assistance following the blast.

“From our American coalition allies who were on the spot amazingly quickly rendering crucial assistance,” he said.

“And of course the Iraqi police service was on the spot very quickly doing all the things you'd expect a professional police service to do, cordoning the area, gathering evidence, finding out what had happened. We're very proud of them.”

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Elections in Iraq this month will be “imperfect” because they will lack full participation if Sunni Muslims go ahead with a planned boycott, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says.

”Obviously the higher the turnout, the greater the legitimacy of the whole process,” Mr Straw told the Financial Times.

“And the reverse is also true. These elections are going to be imperfect.”
[…]
“The crucial thing is to develop a voting system and constitution that is inclusive of the minority…. They have to be brought in in any event,” Mr Straw said.

The British Foreign Minister has also defended European negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, and dismissed reports that the United States is considering military action against the Islamic republic.

“You will always find somebody in Washington thinking about something. That's how things are there,” he said.

As opposed to the EU.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A group led by Al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi says it is responsible for four suicide bombings in Iraq, including the attack on the Australian embassy in Baghdad.

The statements from the Al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq say members of the group's “martyrdom squadrons” struck four locations - the Australian mission, police stations in eastern Baghdad and in central Haifa street, and a US convoy near Baghdad's international airport.
[…]
“We promise you, agents of the Jews and the Christians, that we've got a lot more (attacks) prepared for you,” one of the statements said.

“We vow that we will not stop our jihad (holy war) until we are victorious or martyred.”

Iraqi Army 8th Brigade Graduates Multiple Classes :

About 900 Iraqi Soldiers from the 8th Brigade, 3rd Division, graduated from basic military training at Al Kasik Military Training Base on Jan. 16.

In addition, 13 Soldiers at the base completed a medical training program.

Iraqi Training battalion graduates 878 :

The Iraqi Training Battalion in Kirkush graduated 878 direct recruit replacements on Jan. 18 as part of the Iraqi military’s ongoing effort to strengthen its forces.

Recruits spent three weeks in basic skills refresher with concentration on likely missions, traffic control points, local security patrols and fixed site security.

The Soldiers are all being assigned to the Iraqi Army's 5th Division.

Iraqi Army graduates 670 from training :

The Iraqi Army graduated an Iraqi Intervention Force brigade of 670 Soldiers from dire