January 30, 2005 - Iraq's 1st Election

Three years have passed now since I was with the 1st CAV in Baghdad. It's time for me to share the story of Iraq's first free election, a story that wasn't told loud enough, a story that has been forgotten already, and a story that needs to be recorded for history. I have gathered some slides from unclassified briefings. By waiting three years and filtering out the pictures of individual faces I believe it is now safe enough to share.

On January 30th, 2005 Iraq held their first election. Of the 14 million eligible voters, 8,550,571 Iraqis voted - a 58 % voter turn out. (a higher voter turnout than then United States has)

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To read more about that historical date see wikipedia's entry on Iraqi legislative election, January 2005

This slideshow is dedicated to the Gold Star Families in Michigan