January 5, 2005
CNN
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. military announced Wednesday that more than 35,000 American troops will be deployed on the streets of Baghdad on January 30, the date of Iraq's first democratic elections.
"We will be out in force," said Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli of the U.S. Army's Task Force Baghdad.
As daily insurgent attacks continue in the region, U.S. troops will be coordinating with Iraqi security forces to protect the 7 million residents of Baghdad as they go to the polls, Chiarelli said.
"The Iraqis will provide security, operate polling stations, count ballots and announce results," Chiarelli. "The [multinational forces are] not involved in the election process. With additional security forces in place in Baghdad, we stand ready to assist with security matters as determined by the Iraqi government."
Chiarelli also had a message for insurgents who would attempt to disrupt elections.
"We will find you, we will watch where you move, we will listen to you speaking to each other, we will fight and we will defeat you," he warned.
"You cannot sleep, eat, move or meet without the clear understanding that you may be killed or captured at any moment. Cease your operations now and you will be choosing to live."
The major general predicted the security situation in Baghdad will improve by the time elections are held, although he said attacks probably will increase leading up to January 30.
"While insurgent activity in Baghdad will likely spike as the Iraqi people approach their elections and the insurgents become more desperate, we will continue to focus on providing an environment in which Iraqis can conduct their elections without insurgent interference," Chiarelli said.
"I cannot guarantee that there will not be any violence in Baghdad during the elections," Chiarelli said. "In fact, we should expect there will be."
Earlier in the day a suicide car bomber in a city south of Baghdad plowed into a group of police recruits who were departing their academy graduation ceremony. The blast killed at least 10 people and wounded 44 others, Iraqi police said.
The attack, along with three others Wednesday, continued a string of assaults on Iraqi authorities as election day approached.
In a drive-by shooting Wednesday, attackers gunned down the security chief for Iraq's Independent Election Commission in Diyala Province while en route to work, the U.S. military said.
The security chief, Col. Khalefeh Ali Hassan, and his driver were both killed near Wajihiyah -- north of Baquba, the military and Iraqi sources said.
In western Baghdad, a suicide car bomber tried to hit a U.S.-Iraqi military convoy -- but missed -- killing an Iraqi civilian and wounding another, U.S. and Iraqi authorities said.
In a fourth attack Wednesday, a suicide car bomb killed five Iraqi police officers and wounded eight other people in Baquba, according to a U.S. military statement.
Chiarelli said, "There seems to be a targeting against Iraqi security forces in total, both the Iraqi national guard and the Iraqi police."
Iraqi voters are expected to choose a 275-member transitional national assembly. That body will put together a permanent constitution that will go before voters in a referendum. If the law is approved, the plan calls for elections for a permanent government.
Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said on Wednesday that despite the attacks, the elections will be held as planned, echoing a White House statement a day earlier.
"We will not allow violence and we will not allow terrorists to derail this process here in Iraq," said Allawi, whose party headquarters was attacked by a suicide car bomber on Monday.
Allawi's comments came a day after gunmen assassinated Baghdad provincial Gov. Ali Al-Haidri in an ambush along a Baghdad road.
Also Tuesday, the body of the deputy director of the Iraqi Islamic Party in Mosul was found near a hospital in the northern Iraqi city, a hospital official said.
Last month, security concerns prompted the Iraqi Islamic Party, a leading voice of the nation's minority Sunni Muslims, to pull out of -- but not boycott -- the elections.
Other developments
# Department of Defense officials said 10,252 U.S. troops had suffered combat-related injuries since the Iraqi war began on March 19, 2003. Of those, 5,396 have been wounded seriously enough that they were unable to return to the battlefield, and 4,856 U.S. troops have been wounded and were able to return to duty in Iraq, according to the statistics.
# A U.S. soldier was killed Wednesday and two were wounded in a small arms and rocket-propelled grenade attack on their patrol in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, a U.S. military statement said. With the death, 1,340 U.S. troops have been killed in the Iraq war, including 1,055 in hostile action and 285 in nonhostile activity, according to the U.S. military.
# Near the Green Zone in Iraq's capital, a suicide truck bomb exploded Tuesday, killing eight Iraqi police commandos and two civilians. At least 60 other people were wounded, an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman said.
# Near Baquba, three members of the Iraqi national guard were killed and two wounded in a bomb attack on their patrol Tuesday, a U.S. military official said.
CNN's Arwa Damon, Auday Sadik and Mohammad Tawfeeq contributed to this report.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/05/iraq.main/index.html