The price of voting in Iraq's Mosul

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=12421

~snip~


Campaign banners and posters are virtually nonexistent in Mosul, a predominantly minority Sunni Arab city, as authorities contemplate putting up pro-election billboards that would be guarded by Iraqi soldiers.


Most Sunni political and religious leaders have called for either a boycott or a delay of the elections.


Furthermore, little progress has been made in rebuilding the city's police force after it unraveled in November when insurgents attacked and torched stations.


Then there is the question of how you stop someone who is so much against the whole process that he's willing to wear an explosives-laden vest and to blow himself up in the midst of a crowd on election day.


"A group walking with bombs strapped to their chests are going to be difficult to defend against," says Lieutenant Colonel Michael Kurilla, commander of the 1st Brigade 24th Battalion in western Mosul.

... Was this one of the 4 provinces aWol* said would not be ready?

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

A national election in Iraq is a big FIRST step. Iraq is better off starting with local elections, so that democracy at the local level can be created. You can't have democracy at a National level, if it is not even existent at the local level. The U.S. needs to set up local elections in secure cities first, or else the people who don't yet believe that democracy can work in their country can get a glimpse of how it might be possible and feasible.

I don't think that * wants democracy in Iraq instead he wants a puppet government. to the hague