the total number of insurgent attacks yesterday: 175, ...

[rodeodance]

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> Monday, Jan. 31, 2005, at 4:16 AM PT
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> Everyone leads (online, at least) with Election Day in Iraq, where the turnout was unexpectedly high and the mood jubilant. As many as 8 million people, or almost 60 percent of eligible voters, cast ballots, sometimes within earshot of insurgents' repeated mortar, rocket, machine gun, and suicide attacks, which proved less deadly than feared but still killed 44. "The election was a victory of our own making," Iraq's national security chief told the New York Times. "Today, the Iraqi people voted with their own blood."......

> The Wall Street Journal's front-page story (subscription required) is, bizarrely, alone (as far as TP can see) in putting the casualty count in perspective by mentioning the total number of insurgent attacks yesterday: 175, well more than the recent average of 50 to 60, not that the U.S. makes these numbers public any more. Inside, the Journal also highlights the role of homegrown militias (sub. req.), such as the "Defenders of Baghdad Brigade," in securing polling sites across the country. Many such groups began spontaneously springing up over the last month and U.S. forces decided to back them, outfitting some with weaponry and body armor. The NYT, for its part, fronts a story on the massive security effort that helped keep the deaths from mounting.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2112889/

[WCGreen]

1. Maybe those security troops joined in the protection

in order to rearm themselves........

[Jackie97]

2. Well, yeah...

God forbid that Iraqis want to protect themselves. I don't see that as a bad thing.

[WCGreen]

3. Just more guns on the street

and less credibility to the Interim Government creadability...

Hell what can they protect if the US and the private Militias are front and center?

It would be like handing over responsibility to Cut Swilia or how ever that beret wearing SOB from New York spells his name, was given a neighborhood to guard with little or no restrictions.