…Numbers from the Shia Muslim community in southern Iraq and the Kurds in the north were particularly high. In Sunni areas in central Iraq the picture was mixed. Several particularly violent Sunni towns saw few voters, with reports that some polling stations did not open. Residents in other Sunni areas said that higher than expected numbers went to the polls.

Iraqi election officials initially put turnout at 72% but later admitted it was a crude estimate and said perhaps 8 million out of Iraq’s 14 million eligible voters had taken part, a turnout closer to 57%.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk

DENVER – The University of Colorado’s regents have scheduled a special meeting to consider a professor’s essay that said victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks deserved to die because they were a willing part of “the mighty engine of profit.”

The essay by Ward Churchill, chairman of the ethnic studies department and a longtime Indian activist, was written in the aftermath of the attacks. Its contents became known when he was invited to speak at Hamilton College in Syracuse, N.Y.

Some relatives of Sept. 11 victims have protested the college’s decision to allow Churchill to speak on Thursday, the same day the Colorado regents will meet on the university’s Fitzsimons campus.

CU Provost Phil DiStefano last week said Churchill’s views do not represent the university, but he had a right to express them.

A critic, U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez (news, bio, voting record), R-Colo., said that because Churchill is tenured he apparently is immune from any sanctions by the university but should apologize. There was no answer at Churchill’s office phone Sunday, and his private phone is not listed.

Following the attacks, Churchill wrote an essay, “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens,” that hailed the “gallant sacrifices” of the “combat teams” that struck America.

He said although the victims were civilians they were not innocent. He went on to describe the World Trade Center victims as “little Eichmanns,” a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who organized Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s plan to exterminate Europe’s Jews.
news.yahoo.com

Venezuela President Hugo Chavez and Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong signed several agreements Saturday concerning oil, agriculture and technology, officials said.

Chavez has sought to forge new trade and political ties with foreign powers including China and Russia.

“Each (agreement) will turn into a thousand things,” Chavez said after the signing ceremony at the presidential palace.

Zeng arrived in Venezuela on Friday as part of a tour of several Latin American and Caribbean countries.

His delegation includes 125 officials and business representatives who discussed bilateral investments with Venezuelan business leaders on Saturday.

During their meeting, Chavez and Zeng signed a total of 19 agreements after discussing technological cooperation, as well as mining, oil and gas projects, according to a statement issued by Venezuela information ministry.

On a visit to Beijing last month, Chavez signed agreements boosting Chinese investment in Venezuela’s rich oil and gas resources.

The deals also involved the construction of a railroad in eastern Venezuela, the purchase of a satellite to improve telecommunications in the South American country, and the purchase of radars to tighten security along its border with Colombia.

Venezuela expects trade with China to reach US$3 billion this year due to the trade deals signed in December.

Zeng is to leave for Trinidad and Tobago on Sunday.
Full Article: chinadaily.com

As polls opened across the country, early signs showed a poor turnout of voters in Mosul. US soldiers were seen driving around city blocks asking why residents were not voting.

Despite a heavy US and Iraqi National Guard presence and no civilian vehicular traffic, six explosions rocked the city. The general hospital had no immediate word on casualties.

Voter turnout was heavy in Al-Qadisiya district of the city, however. A polling station for the city’s Kurdish population is located in the heart of the district.

Sunni turnout negligible

Polling stations in several towns in Iraq have not opened five hours after nationwide voting started on Sunday, the country’s electoral commission said.

“In Latifiya, Mahmudiya and Yusufiya, polling stations have not yet opened their doors,” commission spokesman Farid Ayar told reporters.

“As you know, Latifiya, Mahmudiya and Yusufiya are hotspots. We have allowed residents of these areas to vote in the nearest polling station” to the towns, said another member of the commission.

In war-ravaged Falluja, nearly all residents stayed at home despite the presence of five polling stations. Only one man was reported to have voted.
Full Article: aljazeera.net

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Some came on crutches, others walked for miles then struggled to read the ballot, but across Iraq, millions turned out to vote Sunday, defying insurgents who threatened a bloodbath.

Suicide bombs and mortars killed at least 27 people, but voters still came out in force for the first multi-party poll in 50 years. In some places they cheered with joy at their first chance to cast a free vote, in others they shared chocolates.

Even in Falluja, the Sunni city west of Baghdad that was a militant stronghold until a U.S. assault in November, a steady stream of people turned out, confounding expectations. Lines of veiled women clutching their papers waited to vote.
Full Article: reuters.myway.com

Since no international observors were present, there is no reason to believe the 72% voting rate in Iraq. But articles such as these and triumphalist statements from the U.S. can be expected over the next few days.
And I have to admit, listening to the BBC reports, it is difficult not to be moved by people braving death to vote. Of course, the people of Iraq need similar courage to go to the grocery store, and some don’t make it home. The civilian death toll in this war is estimated at 100,000.
It should surprise no one that people leap at opportunities to live in free societies. But this universal human desire is being manipulated to suit the aims of people for whom ‘freedom’ as most of us understand it means nothing of the kind.
I would be interested to see an exit poll that asked voters if they wanted the U.S. out. I’m quite sure no one bothered. It isn’t happening.
Bush’s State of the Union speech is Wednesday, which gives insight into the timing of the election. Condoleeza Rice is on tv this morning with a tear in the eye for the valiant Iraqis. If only she knew.

by David Bacon
When they came for Hadi Saleh, they found him at home in Baghdad with his family. First, they bound his hands and feet with wire. Then they tortured him, cutting him with a knife. He finally died of strangulation, but apparently that wasn’t enough. Before fleeing, his assailants pumped bullets into his dead body.

No group claimed credit for his assassination on January 4. Nobody knows for sure who carried it out. But for many Iraqis, the manner of his death was a signature.
Full Article: zmag.org

For Americans with an unimpaired memory this sounds all too familiar. “Salvador Option” anyone? When it is reported that they are ‘considering’ paramilitary death squads, we can assume they already have them.

by Scott Ritter
The White House’s acknowledgement last month that the United States has formally ended its search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq brought to a close the most calamitous international deception of modern times.

…When one looks at the situation in Iraq today, the only way that it would be possible to justify the current state of affairs – a once secular society now the centre of a global anti-American Islamist jihad, tens of thousands of civilians killed, an unending war that costs almost £3.2bn a month, and the basic principles of democracy mocked through an election process that has generated extensive violence – is if the invasion of Iraq was for a cause worthy of the price.

…But, through the invasion of Iraq, a crime of gigantic proportions has been perpetrated. If history has taught us anything, it is that it will condemn both the individuals and respective societies who not only perpetrated the crime, but also remained blind and mute while it was being committed.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk

A suicide bomber attacked a police station Saturday in a Kurdish town, killing eight people, and insurgents blasted polling places in several cities on the eve of landmark elections in which the president acknowledged many Iraqis will not vote because of fears for their lives.

In Baghdad, bursts of heavy machine gun fire rattled through central districts at midday, and several heavy explosions shook the downtown area in the afternoon.

Iraqi police and soldiers set up checkpoints through streets largely devoid of traffic as the nation battened down for the vote, with a nighttime curfew imposed across the country and the borders sealed.

Seven American soldiers were killed Friday in the Baghdad area, including two pilots who died in the crash of their OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter.

Insurgents blasted polling places in at least eight cities today and central Baghdad shook with shelling and heavy machine gun fire. American fighter jets roared through the skies in a show of force and buzzing US military helicopters dotted the skyline.

West of the capital, in the insurgent bastion of Ramadi, five Iraqis with hands tied behind their backs were found slain early today on a city street. One of the bodies was decapitated. Militants accused them of working for the Americans.

Sunni Muslim extremists have warned Iraqis not to participate in tomorrow’s election, threatening to “wash the streets” in blood. Iraqis will chose a 275-member National Assembly and provincial councils in Iraq’s 18 provinces. Voters in the Kurdish self-ruled area of the north will select a new regional parliament.

At a press conference, prime minister Ayad Allawi’s spokesman sought to boost Iraqi morale, appealing to his countrymen to set aside their fears and take part in the election.

“I encourage the Iraqi people to overcome their fear. It is important. It will preserve the integrity of Iraq,” spokesman Thaer al-Naqeeb said. “If you vote … the terrorists will be defeated.”

But President Ghazi al-Yawer predicted many of Iraq’s voters will stay home, not because of boycott calls from some in the Sunni minority but because of fear of bloodshed.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk

Iraqi official sees big turnout
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s deputy prime minister yesterday predicted that voter turnout to form a National Assembly tomorrow will prove skeptics wrong and exceed voting in U.S. national elections.
    Barham Salih also said the stakes are enormous for the entire world, not just Iraq and nations in the U.S.-led coalition.
    ”It will definitely be better than voter turnout in the U.S. and the United Kingdom,” Mr. Salih said in an interview while sitting beneath palm trees outside his marbled office in Baghdad’s fortified green zone.
Full Article: washtimes.com

WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 – Not quite 38 years ago, enmeshed in a drawn-out war whose ultimate outcome was deeply in doubt, Lyndon B. Johnson met on Guam with the fractious generals who were contending for leadership of South Vietnam and told them: “My birthday is in late August. The greatest birthday present you could give me is a national election.”

George W. Bush’s birthday is in early July, but his broad goals for the Iraqi elections on Sunday are much the same as the Johnson administration’s in 1967: to confer political legitimacy and credibility on a government that Iraqis themselves will be willing and able to fight to defend, and that American and world public opinion will agree to help nurture.

“I think one lesson is that there be a clear objective that everybody understands,” Mr. Bush said in an interview with The New York Times this week, reflecting on the relevance of Vietnam today. “A free, democratic Iraq, an ally in the war on terror, with an Iraqi army, all parts of it – Iraqi forces, army, national guard, border guard, police force – able to defend itself. Secondly, that people understand the connection between that goal and our future.”

But the difficulties of achieving such objectives, then and now, have led a range of military experts, historians and politicians to consider the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq to warn of potential pitfalls ahead. Nearly two years after the American invasion of Iraq, such comparisons are no longer dismissed in mainstream political discourse as facile and flawed, but are instead bubbling to the top.

“We thought in those early days in Vietnam that we were winning,” Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, one of this war’s most vocal opponents, warned in a speech here on Thursday. “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. 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.”
Full Article: nytimes.com

NEW YORK (Reuters) – ChevronTexaco Corp. (CVX.N), the No. 2 U.S. oil company, on Friday said quarterly profit nearly doubled, driven by record crude oil prices and soaring refining margins.

The results were well above Wall Street forecasts and capped a record year marked by the highest annual profit in its history, due in large part to the jump in energy prices.

But the company disappointed some with its declining production figures, and its shares fell amid a broader drop in crude prices ahead of Sunday’s OPEC meeting and the Iraq elections.

Oil and gas production fell about 9 percent in the quarter because of properties sold off and from disruptions due to the damage inflicted by Hurricane Ivan in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
Full Article: nytimes.com/reuters