Mass Resignations Before Iraq Vote (Police and Election Officials)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.sierratimes.com/05/01/16/mass_resignations.htm

U.S. and Iraqi officials are scrambling to recruit new police and election workers in Mosul after thousands of them resigned in the face of rebel intimidation. A new police chief was appointed a week ago to command a force of barely 1,000 police. Last November the city had 5,000 police.

Similar mass resignations are believed to have occurred in other Sunni Muslim areas of northern, central and western Iraq.

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz acknowledged that the security threat to the Jan. 30 election was worse than in last October's nationwide balloting in Afghanistan and that it was impossible to guarantee "absolute security" against the "extraordinary intimidation that the enemy is undertaking."

"I would underscore that there was intimidation in Afghanistan — the Taliban threatened all kinds of violence against people who registered or people who voted," Wolfowitz told reporters Sunday in Jakarta, Indonesia. "But I don't believe they ever got around to shooting election workers in the street or kidnapping the children of political candidates."

[Demeter]

1. Get the Helicopters Going

Last one out of Siagon is a rotten egg---oops, I meant Baghdad, sure I did!

[UL_Approved]

8. Wonder if Dan Rather could report on that

Wouldn't it be sweet irony for Dan Rather to report on the evacuation of Iraq, just like Saigon. And to have that juicy knowledge that he got revenge for the NG scandal fallout, so redeeming...

[diamond14]

10. PHOTO: Americans leaving Vietnam, after winning hearts and minds

once before, the American Military, the MOST expensive in the world, with the BEST weapons of the times, including chemical/biological weapons: napalm, agent orange and more....LOST BIG TIME to a third-world nation with NO Air Force and NO Navy....

Good Morning, IRAQmire......

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. "U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz"

Now that is a name that inspires confidence doesn't it?

[mike_c]

3. "the enemy" that Wolfowitz mentions...

...is the citizenry who's "freedom" the administration used to tout as the reason for invading, once the whole WMD lie fell through. We might have to kill them all to make them stop hating freedom so much.

[malaise]

11. Bingo n/t

[Ganja Ninja]

4. What a joke!

This whole thing is farce just like the sovereignty hand over. Once this election is over we are going to be fixated on some other event/date 6 months from now. As if once that date arrives everything will change. It's a never ending game.

[warrens]

5. Ol Wolfie does it again

Why don't you just taunt them in the open, you nazi punk? Why not say, we DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU to gun down innocent civilians, kidnap anything that moves, and blow up all the polling stations. Come on, you raghead wimps.

These are the most incompetent, loudmouthed, crude, moronic, and EVIL asswipes ever to run a country larger than, oh, Rwanda.

[Dhalgren]

6. You are 100% dead on!

"But I don't believe they ever got around to shooting election workers in the street or kidnapping the children of political candidates."
This is the stupidest fucking statement I have heard since "Bring 'em on!" Are they really this idiotic, or is it something else? I believe that many people have given these Bush-baboons too much credit. When one of these mental midgets makes an utterance that sounds just too lame and moronic to be real, people will say, "Oh, they have something up their sleeves..."
No, folks, these brain-damaged, inbred, blubbering fools have nothing, nothing up their sleeves - just empty air and a festering stump!

[jazzjunkysue]

7. If it wasn't so pathetic, I'd sit back and laugh.

My country made this mess. Now, a catholic priest. Wonderful. This is the kind of collossal mess only a Bush could create. Nice to hear Kerry go on mic saying that the administration has no plans to make anything happen about the "election" results.

Put the kindergardners in charge, and this is what you get. Fingerpainting.

[malaise]

13. Quite logical

taking the archbishop. The catholic church will now be forced to take a public position. The little PR notes from the pope won't do. Now there will be a sustained discussion and about time. This church has always been on the wrong side - check its history.
The day I discovered that, I walked. In my world the archbishop is no more important than the innocent Iraqis under siege. The pope already thinks otherwise - he and his church suddenly understand what's been happening to other innocent people. Now we'll hear from them. I'm sorry for the poor man and every other innocent.

Yep, the imperialists continue to divide and rule.

[Massachusetts]

9. Tet!

[diamond14]

12. THAT's a high probability.....it seems to have already started...

bush* spinning machine just trying to keep Americans out-of-information until the elections are over....

elections: some PHOTOS on faux news at a highly protected polling place next to the Green Zone, with a few HAPPY IRAQIS casting their ballots...close up camera, so you won't see the sandbags, blast walls, tanks, and surrounding armed American Troops....

the rest of the ELECTIONS will NOT BE TELEVISED....