Iraq to Seal Its Borders During Election

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050118/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi officials announced Tuesday they will seal the country's borders, extend a nighttime curfew and restrict movement to protect voters during the Jan. 30 vote, which insurgents are seeking to ruin with a campaign of violence.


Attacks continued Tuesday, with a suicide car bomber detonating explosives outside the offices of a leading Shiite political party, killing himself and three other people, in an apparent bid to frighten voters. Masked gunmen also killed a Shiite Muslim candidate in the Iraqi capital.


A Catholic archbishop kidnapped by gunmen in the northern city of Mosul was released Tuesday, a day after his abduction. The Vatican (news - web sites) had called his abduction a "terrorist act."


Sunni Muslim militants, who make up the bulk of Iraq (news - web sites)'s insurgency, are increasingly honing in on Shiites in their effort to ruin the election that is widely expected to propel their religious rivals to a position of dominance.

[liberal N proud]

1. How do you close a border of sand dunes?

[Cooley Hurd]

2. more importantly, how do you seal a border with the miniscule...

...force we have there?:shrug:

[BRLIB]

4. Duct tape, after all it's the prime ingredient

for homeland security.

Now don't lie about the "insurgents" coming in from Syria anymore if you can abruptly seal off the borders.

[egoprofit]

16. my heart goes out to the people who try to vote that day...

God only knows what will happen to those innocent people in their now completely unstable country. i hope there is not one innocent person killed but i plan for the worse. i can only imagine what the militants are cooking up for the elections....

[Massachusetts]

3. One more statement to prove the situation is

FUBAR

[paineinthearse]

5. Won't they get hot and dehydrated?

[Demeter]

6. Like That's Going To Make A Difference?

Of course, if they managed to get the US out before the borders closed, that might make for a pleasant change....

[bemildred]

7. Talk is cheap, and that's all they have talk.

You can't seal a border with bombs.

[Why Syzygy]

8. dupe

so?

do they get to vote? .. like in the United States of America? ... what an honor!

puh-leeze

edit: oh wait .. car bombers or rpgs will take out the polling places. That's nice, isn't it?
Happy freedom elections.


:grr:

[shadowknows69]

9. apparently we should have closed the borders earlier

that's how all the foreign fighters are streaming into iraq to fight us right?

[Algorem]

13. It might be just a teensy tiny bit late?

[soup]

10. 'restrict movement'

Are they still considering a 3-day ban on driving?


Sunday, January 16, 2005

Methods to secure Iraq vote reviewed

Officials consider a three-day ban on driving to defuse car bombings.

By Hamza Hendawi / Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi officials said Saturday they are considering new measures to protect voters in the Jan. 30 national election, including a three-day, nationwide ban on driving to discourage car-bombings.
http://www.detnews.com/2005/nation/0501/16/A04-60811.htm

And, didn't most - if not all - of the election officials in a couple of the cities already quit?

This is all just going really well, isn't it?

[jmcgowanjm]

11. Hello, leftchick-London Telegraph reporting Archbishop freed

http://uruknet.info/.?p=m8946

Following images supposedly from Mosul





The US is hoping for civil war. Pathetic.
All they can do is chaos.

Al Qaim borderpost on Syrian (we're coming
to get you) border. IRR 011705

Witnesses told Mafkarat al-Islam that an Iraqi
Resistance martyrdom fighter in an explosives-laden
Opel accelerated to “crazy” high speed and blasted into
an American column that was entering the customs
building compound at about 4:45pm, Baghdad time. The
attack took the Americans completely by surprise and they
were unable even to get off one shot, as they usually do at
any approaching car. As a result, the Resistance attacker
was able to detonate his car in the midst of the American
column setting off an explosion heard throughout the whole
city. The blast was so powerful that all the glass in windows
in nearby houses and even some fairly far away was
smashed.

US forces gathered, as usual, to extract the dead and
wounded from the area. Ten minutes later, therefore,
Resistance fighters fired a Grad rocket into the same
area targeting the large congregation of US forces,
Mafkarat al-Islam reported in a dispatch posted at 5:25pm
Mecca time Monday.

http://uruknet.info/.?p=m8944

[Earth_First]

12. Smells like 'democracy' to me...

mmmm...democracy.

[klyon]

14. if the border could be sealed why hasn't it been done already

not enough people I assume so where will they come from now

KL

[egoprofit]

15. i hope george w bush is there to greet the first-time voters