Took off for the Red Zone mid-morning. Empty highways. Streets either desolate or packed with pedestrians. People waved and pointed with their inked fingers. Baghdad is divided into two major electoral districts, one on each side of the river. I met with officials on both sides to coordinate. Karkh, the west side, is run by Mohanned. Young guy, mid-twenties. Big, bear-hug kind of guy. Scruffy half-beard, t-shirt and khaki shorts. Chaotic office- lots of activity- Waleed the IT officer sat on a table and it collapsed and then he leaned up against the air conditioner and the power went out in the building. Mohanned yells at him and then everybody cracks up. It’s like a frat house meeting. Mohanned and I go over the heavy stuff – apparently some of his workers got arrested or something – I can’t quite get the whole story because it keeps changing. Karkh has some bad areas. Abu Ghraib, Mahmoudiya, Rasheed. Rough parts of town. We talk about the plan to get those 900 workers that went out yesterday back home. Or, the lack of one. He’ll figure it out later. Then I get over to Rusafa, the east side of town. Rusafa has Sadr City. It runs itself- no need to go there. Mustafa, or Dr. Mustafa (I’ve found that anybody with any kind of advanced schooling is referred to as ‘doctor’) is a professor; mid-forties. The meeting is formal. We exchange pleasantries. He introduces me to the local police chief who is on site to protect the office with his crew. It’s like a commando unit. They are very serious. They have Glocks which they allow me to check out. The chief loosens up a little. Mustafa has very few issues to discuss.
Got back in the IZ a little before polls closed at 5pm. Checked in with Yossra again. I had several shouted conversations in the humvee with her. She needed help getting some info about the status of some of the sites in the southern area. I cross-referenced with what we were tracking. Then I started getting inquiries from the brass- ‘So, how many people voted today?...’ I tried to explain to the colonel that there’s no such thing as exit polls here. There’s absolutely no mechanism to know how this will all turn out- until it all turns out.
