Voting Extended in Historic Iraq Elections
Thursday, December 15, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The Iraqi election commission extended voting by one more hour because of high turnout in the country's historic parliamentary elections Thursday.

And to the surprise of coalition forces, violence in Iraq was much lighter than expected and the smattering of attacks didn't appear to discourage Iraqis, some of whom turned out wrapped in their country's flag on a bright, sunny day and afterward displayed a purple ink-stained index finger — a mark to guard against multiple voting.

If all goes well, U.S. officials hope the vote will set the stage for a troop reduction in that country.

"We see a set of circumstances with the elections that we can begin to downsize forces and reduce, significantly, the size of our forces in the aftermath of the election," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told FOX News. "It can be seen as a calendar of events leading to … U.S. withdrawl."

The high voter turnout was due, in part, to large numbers of Sunni Arabs showing up at some of the country's 33,000 polling stations; many Sunnis boycotted elections earlier this year. Many Iraqis had waited until the last minute to vote, to make sure the security situation was under control before they left their homes for the polls.

Read on here:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,178770,00.html

The real question is who or what are they allowing them to vote for?



I found it on a search. Good site:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...33263.stm#what

On the same page of that link:

Up to 15 million Iraqis were electing 275 members of the first full-term parliament since Saddam's ouster from among 7,655 candidates running on 996 tickets, representing Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish, Turkomen and sectarian interests across a wide political spectrum.

Iraqis do not vote for individual candidates, but instead for lists — or tickets — that compete for the seats in each of the 18 provinces.

Another fact being carefully excluded from these stories, and something I only know because I am now a part of this community, is that these elections are being run by the U.S. Army Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) community. As were the elections in Kosovo, and Afghanistan... The locals, are 'strongly encouraged' to attend these elections to 'support the formation of their new democracy'.

We just don't advertise this fact to the public too much.

Strange way to promote democracy if you ask me...

Who said we wanted to promote it? They will get democracy, regardless of what they want. They will get it, and they will love it (publically), by any means neccesary.

Winning the hearts and minds...

Tad, I just posted an article on the PSYOPS on Dec 13th in the 'military, White phosphorus' but I had no idea they are involved in the election process. That is truly amazing.

That's what I now do for a living... I work with U.S. Army Special Forces. I am working in the Civil Affairs / Psychological Operations Community. Good stuff...