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DEL.ICIO.USSoldiers guard against election disruptions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Forward Operating Base Yusufiyah, Iraq - You can see seashell watermarks when you hold the red, white and blue ballots up to the light.
The ballots are simple in their design, asking only one question: “Do you accept the constitution?” There are empty white boxes for voters to press their ink-stained thumbprints for “No” or “Yes.”
Volunteer poll workers arrived here on cattle trucks and began unloading the ballots Friday afternoon. There were 265 men crammed together and sweating under a blazing sun.
Louie Favorite/AJC
A young Iraqi soldier waves his flag after escorting election workers. .
“It was very hot and most of them were fasting for Ramadan,” said Ibrahem Hameed Sa’eed, 48, of Baghdad, a former Iraqi army captain who supervised yesterday’s trip.
Because of tight security, it took them roughly seven hours to drive 10 miles on open roads from Baghdad. Iraqi security forces have banned all other civilian traffic until after the election. They hope to prevent suicide car-bombings.
Georgia Army National Guard soldiers escorted the poll workers in Humvees. Apache helicopters hovered overhead. U.S. tanks lined the way. Iraqi soldiers wielding AK-47s joined the convoy, waving their country’s black, red, green and white flag.
The soldiers don’t want anything to disrupt Saturday’s referendum on Iraq’s proposed national constitution.
Too many volunteers showed up for the job Friday. They were expecting five polling places, but only three were made available. So more than 80 people will work at each location Saturday, organizing lines, confirming voters’ identities and helping them cast ballots.
Sa’eed said each volunteer will receive $200 U.S. for working the polls.
“Our goal is not the money. Our goal is to serve the Iraqi people and make them know about democracy,” Sa’eed said. “This is very important.”
Many volunteers prepared to sleep at their posts overnight. They brought bags of clothing and blankets. Some walked downtown and bought watermelons and soft drinks.
Sa’eed watched as some of the workers filed into a high school for girls. It will serve as one of this town’s three polling places. Insurgents fired a mortar round at the school Thursday, slightly wounding one girl.
This town of roughly 25,000 Sunni and Shiite residents is part of a restive area south of Baghdad called the Triangle of Death. Hussein’s elite Republican Guard had a barracks here before the U.S. invasion. Looters left it in ruins following the war.
This base is the former site of the town’s main industry, a potato factory. It once employed thousands of workers, including some who managed surrounding farms. Georgia National Guard soldiers occupy it now.
Insurgents attacked the base Friday evening with a rocket-propelled grenade. Iraqi troops responded by lighting up the sky with illumination rounds and a barrage of machine gun fire.
Also Friday, insurgents detonated roadside bombs and fired mortars at surrounding U.S. and Iraqi outposts. No one was injured in the attacks.
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