Millions of Iraqis head to the polls on March 7 for nationwide parliamentary elections.
This time – unlike in previous years following the 2003 US-led invasion – campaign advertisements have been plastered across Iraqi cities, and local media have been airing elaborate political commercials constantly.
Duration : 0:7:32
Iraqis go to the polls on Sunday and this year several female candidates are daring to appear in public without a veil. It’s a real act of defiance in the face of Iraqi culture which has become more conservative since the fall of Saddam Hussein. A voiced AFPTV report
Duration : 0:1:43
Iraqis go to the polls on Sunday and this year several female candidates are daring to appear in public without a veil. It’s a real act of defiance in the face of Iraqi culture which has become more conservative since the fall of Saddam Hussein. A voiced AFPTV report
Duration : 0:1:43
It is election season in Iraq, on the 7th of March Iraqis will go to the polls and decide who will make up their next government.
Iraq’s politicians want to be part of the new parliament but they are using a very old method of speaking to voters – the political poster.
As a result, Baghdad’s printers and party activists are working around the clock.
Omar al-Saleh reporting from Baghdad.
Duration : 0:1:46
It is election season in Iraq, on the 7th of March Iraqis will go to the polls and decide who will make up their next government.
Iraq’s politicians want to be part of the new parliament but they are using a very old method of speaking to voters – the political poster.
As a result, Baghdad’s printers and party activists are working around the clock.
Omar al-Saleh reporting from Baghdad.
Duration : 0:1:46
Official campaigning for Iraq’s March 7 general election started on Friday in a tense atmosphere overshadowed by angry demands from provincial leaders that workers linked to Saddam Hussein be fired.Duration: 00:32
Duration : 0:0:32
Two years ago, when Bethany was born with a serious heart problem, private health insurance wouldn’t help her.
Without the State Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), Bethany might not be with us today.
Health care for 800,000 children like Bethany costs one week in Iraq.
Tell Congress S-CHIP works and to overturn Bush’s veto: 1-866-544-7573.
Duration : 0:1:10
John McCain said this today in Rochester, New Hampshire: “This is a clear choice that the American people have. I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.”
This is the ninth presidential campaign I’ve covered. I can’t remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. It smacks of desperation. It renews questions about whether McCain has the right temperament for the presidency. How sad.
Scurrility Update: Readers should note that I said that I can’t remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. Smart politicians leave the scurrilous stuff to their aides; in fact, a McCain spokesman expressed these words almost exactly on July 14. There is a reason why politicians who want to be President don’t say these sort of things: It isn’t presidential. A President exists in the straitjacket of literality. His words mean something. So John McCain has to literally believe that Barack Obama would “rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.” I can’t imagine that he does. He popped off, out of frustration.
The reality is that neither Barack Obama nor Nouri al-Maliki nor most anybody else believes that the Iraq war can be “lost” at this point. The reality is that no matter who is elected President, we are looking at a residual U.S. force of 30-50,000 by 2011 (a year ahead of the previous schedule). The reality is that McCain should be proud that he helped salvage a disastrous situation by pushing the counterinsurgency plan. It’s something to run on. But, at this point, McCain must sense that it’s not a winning hand. Obama, the poker player, has drawn to an inside straight: the Iraqis favor his plan over McCain’s long-term bases. That must be galling. But it’s no excuse to pop off the way McCain did. It was, shockingly, unpresidential.
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/07/mccain_meltdown.html
During an interview with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), CBS Evening News host Katie Couric noted that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) said recently that “there might have been improved security [in Iraq] even without the surge” and asked McCain, “What’s your response to that?”
After first calling Obama’s claim “a false depiction of what actually happened,” McCain proceeded to falsely claim that the surge “began the Anbar awakening”:
McCAIN: I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarland was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history.
But in a puzzling move, the CBS Evening News did not actually televise McCain’s false claim tonight. As MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann reported, “CBS curiously, to say the least, left it on the edit room floor. It aired Katie Couric’s question, but in response, it inserted part of McCain’s answer to another question instead.”
http://geniusofinsanityworld.blogspot.com/2008/07/john-mccain-confused-on-sunni-awakening.html
Duration : 0:10:41