Hugh in Iraq, Tuesday.
Today, Hugh's PM reflections on aspects of the past five years in Iraq focussed on the three polling days in 2005. Optimistic days, and days with bombs. Here are some of the photos he took at the time, along with his words:
"January 2005: Billboard with a clear message. There was also a T-Shirt: "Give Terrorism the Finger".
Enforcing the Baghdad vehicle curfew on election day. The sign says: "Vote - to give our children a better land".
Roaming the streets. Neighbourhoods had put up their own defences for election day. We turned back.
A US 'ring of steel' kept car bombs out of Baghdad on election day. But it couldn't prevent at least four suicide bomb attacks on polling stations. Dubious message on the tank....
Early in the morning, one of the first voters on January 30th 2005.
Two hours later, the polling station was approached by a suicide bomber. The two policemen who who challenged him died in the ensuing explosion. These voters remained patiently in line despite the human remains that they could see in the street in front of them.
Rana, aged seven, listening to her own voice on my sound recorder near a polling station. A few moments of cheerful distraction for a grief-stricken little girl - her policeman father had been shot dead three days earlier.
Happier voters at the election in December 2005. The woman on the left is inviting me in for tea."
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