By Kirk Semple
The New York Times, 15 December 2005
RAMADI, Iraq, Dec. 14 - As participatory democracy has accelerated throughout much of Iraq this year, its failure to take hold here in the Sunni Arab heartland of western Iraq weighs heavily on this dangerous and broken town.
In the elections for an interim government in January, the percentage of registered voters who went to the polls in Ramadi was close to nil. Turnout in October's constitutional referendum was not much better, with only about 2,000 people - in a city of roughly 290,000 residents - casting ballots. Most of those were poll workers and Iraqi Army soldiers from other places.
Iraqi election officials say that the heavy American and Iraqi military presence around polling places was to blame for the low turnout. So for the national parliamentary election on Thursday, they have decided to try something new: pulling back the troops and entrusting security to tribal sheiks and local residents.
This is a major shift from January and October, when American troops in Ramadi turned polling places into fortified bunkers, transported poll workers in armored vehicles and set a cordon of weaponry around the sites. The presence "was an intimidating factor," acknowledged Maj. Edwards Little, an operations officer for the Second Brigade combat team of the Army's 28th Infantry Division, which is stationed here.
Yet some American officials doubt that the new plan will succeed, and several said in interviews that they would have preferred it if electoral officials had requested a more visible American presence. "I think it's a gamble," Major Little said.
American and Iraqi officials say that a widespread Sunni Arab turnout on Thursday would help draw support away from the Sunni-led rebellion, which remains the greatest obstacle to the American-designed democratic process in Iraq. That challenge comes into sharp focus here, the capital of Anbar Province and a bastion of the insurgency.
Violence has stilled this city, driving life indoors. Every building on the main streets is perforated with bullet holes, and some have been blown apart in months of fighting. American troops, not civilians, are the targets of the insurgents, and the four American military bases and several smaller outposts nearby are pelted with mortars daily, and their patrols are regularly attacked by snipers and concealed bombs. At least 45 American troops have died here in the last four months.
While many Sunnis across Iraq turned out in large numbers for the October vote, most voters in Anbar Province stayed away - in large part, Iraqi and American officials here say, because of death threats by insurgents. Turnout in the province was 32 percent, half the national average, statistics from the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq show. In Ramadi, turnout was well under 1 percent of registered voters, estimated Maj. Dan Wagner, a Marine civil affairs officer here.
American military officials say security in Ramadi appears to be improving, if marginally, and a series of small sweeps here recently uncovered dozens of arms caches. Officers with the Second Brigade combat team, which oversees security in greater Ramadi, say they have seen a drop in the frequency of road bombs, mortar attacks and small arms fire in the last two months. Several thousand Iraqi Army troops have arrived in Ramadi this year to complement the American forces.
The insurgents "have not been neutralized," said Capt. Richard Hiles, a planning officer with the Second Brigade combat team. "But we have disrupted their operations so they are constantly having to move."
"This place," he said, "is the last bastion of the insurgency."
The new poll security strategy was developed by election officials in collaboration with local tribal leaders. It resembles an experiment tried in the October referendum in the rural towns and villages just east of Ramadi, where about 160,000 people live. Turnout was low by national standards - no more than 5 percent of registered voters, according to some American military estimates - but it was still much higher than the stunted turnout in the city.
The national security plan for polling places is to form three rings of security, with the police guarding the entrances, Iraqi Army troops providing a close cordon and Americans conducting patrols or standing by as a quick reaction force.
Under the new approach in Ramadi, which will now be applied throughout the city, government forces will remain on the streets but fade into the periphery. Iraqi Army troops will provide a secondary cordon around polling places, and the American troops will conduct light patrols or stand by in case of emergency, officials said.
The electoral commission has handed security responsibilities for the polling places and their vicinity to tribal leaders, who will recruit residents as guards and poll workers. Not only do they know the neighborhood and its residents, but as neighbors, they will be more vested in the security of the polling place and its voters, said Col. Aeish Abdulaziz Ibrahim, security director in Ramadi for the commission.
Tribal leaders will designate about 20 security guards for each center, Colonel Ibrahim said, and they will position themselves around polling places and in them. The guards, he noted, will carry Kalashnikov assault rifles. But a Western diplomat in Anbar, when informed of Mr. Ibrahim's intention to put armed guards in polling places, said that it was against electoral law. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to appear to be interfering in the Iraqi political process. The electoral commission plans to open 32 polling places in the city on Thursday, up from 10 in October. Its plan calls for 25 in the eastern suburbs, the same number as before.
In an indication of an improving political climate, walls in Ramadi are, for the first time, plastered with campaign posters. Locally hired poll workers, in defiance of death threats, took ballots to polling places on Wednesday in flatbed trucks unaccompanied by security guards.
"I'm not worried because most people want to participate in the elections," said Salaam Ubaid, 35, as he loaded a truck with ballots. "There was a wall of fear. Now the people of Ramadi have broken down this wall."
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a military spokesman in Baghdad, says conditions in Anbar Province as a whole are set for a 45 percent to 50 percent voter turnout. Officials here are less optimistic for Ramadi. The brigade commander, Col. John L. Gronski, said a goal of 40,000 in greater Ramadi - about four times the October vote yet a small fraction of those eligible - "is not unreasonable."
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Citation: Kirk Semple. "U.S. Forces in Ramadi Leave Security to Iraqis to Raise Voter Turnout," The New York Times, 15 December 2005.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/international/middleeast/15security.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1134662911-PnWyWeHPHROHYhu+zDxVWQ
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