Troops in place on eve of Iraqi vote
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-15 08:30

For the Bush administration, the stakes are nearly as high as for the Iraqis. A successful election would represent a much-needed political victory at a time of growing doubts about the war among the American public.

"We are in Iraq today because our goal has always been more than the removal of a brutal dictator," Bush said. "It is to leave a free and democratic Iraq in its place."

Insurgent threats and boycott calls kept many Sunnis at home in the January election despite a national turnout of nearly 60 percent. That enabled Shiites and Kurds to dominate the current legislature, sharpening communal tensions and fueling the insurgency.

This time, more Sunnis Arabs were in the race, and changes in the election law to allocate the majority of seats by district all but guaranteed strong Sunni representation.

More than 1,000 Sunni clerics called on their followers to vote, and insurgent groups, including al-Qaida in Iraq and the Islamic Army in Iraq, pledged not to attack polling stations even though they oppose the political process.

Iraqi expatriate Mushtak Al-Atiyah (R), 24 years old, holds his three-year old daughter Zanabi as he watches his mother Suzer (L) cast her absentee ballot in Iraq's election at a polling station in Dearborn, Michigan December 14, 2005. An estimated 240,000 Iraqi's in the U.S. are eligible to vote for Iraq's first parliament since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. [Reuters]

Nevertheless, tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police were to guard polling stations, with U.S. and other coalition forces standing ready in case of trouble. U.S. troops and sniffer dogs checked thousands of polling stations before handing over control to Iraqi police.

As a sign of Sunni interest, mosques, walls, houses and lamp posts in Baghdad's Sunni district of Azamiyah were festooned with posters of Sunni candidates. In January, few people in Azamiyah voted, and some polling stations didn't even open.

U.S. officials were optimistic about a heavy turnout in Fallujah, the Sunni insurgent stronghold captured by American forces last year. Campaign posters were plastered Wednesday over blast walls along the street, at police checkpoints and on the walls of houses.

"In January, turnout was low. In the referendum it was tremendous and tomorrow it will be better," said John Kale Weston, U.S. State Department spokesman in the city.

Still, U.S. officials warned that a successful election alone will not end the insurgency. Also needed is a government capable of reconciling Iraq's disparate groups.

The Americans are also eager to avoid protracted negotiations to choose a new prime minister and Cabinet �� a process that dragged on for three months after the last vote.

"I think the elections are a positive step, but it will not be enough to ensure stability. More steps need to be taken. There should be a good government that represents all Iraqis, and the security forces also should be formed by all Iraqi sects," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told Al-Jazeera television.

His comments about the security forces referred to Sunni Arab complaints that the Shiite-dominated army and police have abused Sunnis. On Tuesday, Khalilzad said at least 120 abused prisoners had been found in two detention centers run by the Interior Ministry since November.

On the eve of the election, sectarian tensions swelled over what Shiite political parties considered an offensive remark made by an Iraqi Shiite panelist on Al-Jazeera. Fadel al-Rubaei said Shiite clerics should not take part in politics, and he accused them of conspiring with the Americans against the mostly Sunni insurgents.

The statements angered many Shiites, including many who did not see the Al-Jazeera broadcast but saw reports about it on an Iraqi station, Al-Furat, owned by the biggest Iraqi Shiite party, which used the report to fire up its supporters.

Hours later, thousands of people chanted anti-Al-Jazeera slogans in the streets of the Baghdad neighborhoods of Sadr City and Karradah, and in major cities throughout the Shiite south.

In Nasiriyah, Shiite protesters set fire to a building housing the offices of former interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, and the Iraqi Communist Party.

"The headquarters was attacked by militiamen who broke inside and set fire to the building. This is a terrorist act that contradicts democracy and this is the reason we are calling for eliminating the militia groups in Iraq," Allawi spokesman Thaer al-Naqib told The Associated Press.

Officials at the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera were not available for comment. But Baghdad correspondent Atwar Bahjat told the AP she resigned from her job "in protest of what the guest of the station said."

Rumors swept Baghdad that a tanker truck filled with thousands of blank ballots had been smuggled into the country from Shiite-dominated Iran. Many Sunnis consider Shiite political parties as agents of Iran.

The Interior Ministry denied any attempt to smuggle ballots, and the election commission said the only trucks in the area were its own delivering election materials to polling stations.