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[Sabbah’s Blog] Iraq constitution approved: We have to keep in mind that results showed that Sunni Arabs, who had sharply opposed the draft document, failed to produce the three-quarters “no” vote they would have needed in at least three of Iraq’s 18 provinces to defeat it. Some Sunni leaders rejected the results.
[Captain's Quarters] Iraq Constitution Passes: More Iraqis voted in this second election since the fall of Saddam than did so in the first, and thanks to the controversial nature of the election, the electorate was more diverse -- and yet almost 80% of Iraqis approved the final version of their new constitution. In the end, only three provinces rejected it, with only two of them reaching the required two-thirds vote for official repudiation.
[TigerHawk] It passed: a news conference that overall, 78% of voters backed the charter and 21% opposed it in the vote... By TigerHawk at 10/25/2005 07:23:00 AM Iraq's new constitution has been approved, according...
[Harry's Place] Iraq Approves Constitution: Farid Ayar, an official with the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, said the vote was "100% correct".
[Iraqthemodel.blogspot.com] IRAQ THE MODEL: Anyway, I think that this conflict between the higher command of Al-Qaeda and the regional command in Iraq represented by Zarqawi will result in decreasing the moral support Al-Qeada in Iraq receives from other "pure" jihadists but will not have an effect on the material support that comes from the neighboring regimes that want to destabilize Iraq; these regimes will continue to pump money and weapons into Iraq and they will continue to provide training camps for recruits and will keep facilitating their passage into Iraq but most likely the numbers of these recruits will decrease since they (the potential jihadists) appear to have more faith in the ideology of the higher leaders of the network rather than in Zarqawi who’s considered an executive or field commander rather than an ideological leader.
[Televisionreporter.typepad.com] Iraq Hack: A Reporter's Blog: Layla and I have heard numerous stories about how, on big multi-million dollar projects, Iraqi translators and engineers--which the Americans, British and non-Iraqi NGOs are forced to use because of language difficulties--often accept bribes from companies to steer contract their way. Since most Westerners don't know Arabic, and must rely on the translators and engineers as their eyes and ears, the funding sources are rarely the wiser.
[Juancole.com] Informed Comment: *Boycotters: The first Sunni-based forces that have defined an attitude toward the constitutional referendum were, of course, for its boycott as a matter of “principle.” They were two: 1) the Ba’ath Party (communiqué of the pan-Arab leadership dated September 9 and communiqué of the Iraqi leadership the same month) calling for a boycott of the referendum to deprive it from any legitimacy (political groups serving as legal facades for the Ba’ath, like the “Supreme Committee of Patriotic Forces-Wahj al-Iraq,” followed suit); and 2) Zarqawi’s al-Qaida branch in Iraq, which did not only warn against any participation in the referendum—from both a “principled” ultra-fundamentalist attitude against any human-made constitution and an anti-occupation stance—but also accompanied its threats with violent actions against those calling for the participation.
[Wordsfromiraq.com] Words From Iraq: OPINION: The Evolution of the Iraq War: We know by now that there was precious little "intelligent design" at work in our occupation of Iraq, although the original military attacks were spectacularly accomplished. Our policy moved from 1) believing that the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators and immediately adopt democracy, despite their bitter history, to 2) amazement, finally bordering on despair, over the internal breakup of the country, to 3) the U.S. military command's lowering of expectations for what can be accomplished in that strange and hostile land, to 4) the genuine, if perhaps impossible, creation of an elected and constitutional government that would give "cover" to American withdrawal and leave some mutant form of united Iraq behind, no matter what it might choose to do in the future.
[Iraqwarnews.net] Frequent Reads Menu Iraq War Today Home Email Us World News Ticker ...: SUNSET LANDING ”” An F-14D Tomcat, assigned to the “Blacklions” of Fighter Squadron 213, holds in the landing pattern with its tailhook down after conducting a late evening mission over the Persian Gulf region. VF-213 is assigned to Carrier Air Wing 8, currently embarked aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
Reflected tags on Technorati: Blog, Iraq, Iraq Reviews
