Security Vies With Danger at Iraqi Polls

Eight days before Iraqis go to the polls, the government Saturday detailed sweeping plans to close borders, ban driving, shut down the country’s major airport and impose a broad curfew in an attempt to maintain security on election day.

Officials vowed to do everything possible to protect civilians and polling places from insurgent attacks in a nation where a fierce guerrilla war has cost thousands of lives, stymied infrastructure improvements and left many people fearful of voting.

“The security situation is very difficult, and there are many dangers and threats to disrupt the election process,” Interior Minister Falah Nakib acknowledged Saturday. “But we hope, with God’s help, that the security will live up to the needed standards.”

All leaves and vacations for Iraqi security personnel will be canceled, the minister said, and Jan. 29 to 31 has been declared a national holiday period. During those days, most vehicular traffic will be prohibited, an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew will be in effect, the country’s borders will be shut down and Baghdad’s international airport will be closed, he added. Civilians will be barred from carrying weapons.

The ban on driving and the curfew are clearly aimed at curbing insurgents’ mobility and thwarting their most effective weapon -- the suicide car bomb. Rumors have swept Baghdad that scores of such bombs are primed and ready to be set off on election day.

Transportation will be provided to Iraqis who cannot walk to their polling places, the interior minister said.

Security already has been bolstered significantly on the streets of Baghdad, where checkpoints manned by AK-47-wielding police officers and national guardsmen -- many wearing black ski masks to conceal their identities -- have multiplied.

Word of the enhanced election security came as the drumbeat of violence continued. News services reported that the militant Ansar al Sunna Army stated on a website that it had executed 15 Iraqi national guardsmen it captured in a bus ambush in western Iraq. Insurgents view Iraqi lawmen as collaborators with U.S. forces and have slaughtered hundreds of them.

At the same time, new video indicated that another insurgent group had decided to free eight kidnapped Chinese construction workers as a “goodwill gesture.” The Chinese government had appealed for the release of the eight, who were seized by gunmen last week as they headed out of Iraq on the highway to Jordan. In the video, an insurgent wearing a checked head scarf was seen apparently sending the Chinese on their way.

The extraordinary security measures for the election underscore the threat from a deadly insurgency that has raged for more than 18 months. Experts say it has grown in size and sophistication and has access to the looted armories of the former regime.

The rebels are thought to be mostly Sunni Muslim Arabs -- long dominant in Iraq -- who lost their preeminent position after U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein in April 2003. Their sundry ranks include former soldiers of Hussein’s army, religious militants, anti-U.S. nationalists and others.

Officials have predicted that voting should proceed relatively smoothly in most of the country, especially the Shiite Muslim areas south of the capital and the Kurdish zones to the north. Shiite Arabs and ethnic Kurds, long suppressed by Hussein, a Sunni Arab, are expected to do well in the voting. Their leaders have endorsed having the election.

But violence still stalks crucial areas, including much of greater Baghdad, the northern city of Mosul and the Sunni heartland to the north and west of the capital.

Officials acknowledge that voting in those areas will be difficult, with polling places likely to be inviting targets.

In the months leading to the election, insurgents have tried to intimidate voters and electoral workers, several of whom have been assassinated. Tens of thousands of additional poll staffers are scheduled to be working on election day, and there is grave concern for their safety.

“The intimidation of electoral workers has been quite high. It’s very serious,” Carlos Valenzuela, the United Nations’ chief advisor to the Iraqi Electoral Commission, said last week. “If there is an onslaught ... it could create what hasn’t happened so far: ... massive resignations from electoral staff. And then the electoral commission would not be in a position to organize the election. We are hoping that that won’t happen.”

The threat of violence is so great that few international observers, familiar with difficult elections worldwide, will be on hand to witness the process, officials say. Foreigners in Iraq, whom insurgents regard as collaborators with U.S.-led forces, are subject to kidnapping, ambush and execution. Instead, thousands of Iraqi observers are to be stationed at polling sites and elsewhere to watch for irregularities.

On Jan. 30, Iraqis are to elect a 275-member transitional national assembly that will write a constitution and form a new government. Iraqis are also to choose 18 provincial councils and, in the three Kurdish provinces, a Kurdish parliament.

About 300,000 Iraqi, U.S. and multinational forces will be available to provide security on election day, officials say. The plan is for Iraqi military and police units to be closest to the more than 5,000 polling places, while U.S. forces provide outer security rings -- keeping their distance from the voting sites. Washington and its Iraqi allies are keen to avoid images of Iraqis casting ballots under U.S. troops’ gaze.

“You won’t see coalition forces at the polling centers,” Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said last week. “You will see Iraqi police, primarily, and those police will be supported by the ... national guard.”

More than 13 million people are estimated to be eligible to vote in Iraq, but officials have no way to gauge how many will turn out. At least 90% of Kurds are expected to vote, but estimates of Sunni turnout are as low as 5%.