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Sunnis voting near Tikrit
Many Iraqis living near Saddam Hussein's hometown said they will vote today because the ballot not violence will end Iraq's occupation by U.S.-led coalition troops.The small town of Alam, 10 miles northeast of Saddam's home city of Tikrit, is relatively quiet unlike other Sunni Muslim areas west and north of Baghdad that roil with militancy and fierce opposition to the national elections. The local leader of one of Iraq's largest clans here is bidding for a seat in the 275-member National Assembly that will govern the country and draft a permanent constitution. Mashaan al-Jbouri, who heads the 37-member Liberation and Reconciliation Front, has said the country can be freed from occupation only through peaceful means. Hasan Mohammed Khazaal, a 24-year-old university student, backed that notion. "We will have a new constitution and I can get rid of the occupiers through elections. This is the only way to evict the occupiers,' said Khazaal, who decorated his car with posters of al-Jbouri, the local chief of the Jbour clan. Al-Jbouri served as the governor of Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, for a few months after the fall of Saddam's regime in April 2003. He is now a member of the transitional National Council, a government oversight body. Maj. Gen. Suleiman Youssef Ahmad, a retired officer who served in Saddam's army, has gone house to house in Alam explaining to people what elections are and why they should vote. "I am not only going to vote. I am guiding the people how to do it,' he said. Another official, 50-year-old Brig. Gen. Mattar Saleh, said he was voting as a means to get foreign troops out of Iraq. "We are Iraqis who oppose sectarian division, and our aim is to liberate our country from occupation,' he said. "I can tell the government that I will elect to ask the occupiers to leave the country through peaceful means.' Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-01-30 |
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