Iraqi election officials carry boxes with ballots to deliver them for general counting in central Baghdad December 16, 2005. (Ceerwan Aziz/Reuters)
Posted on 12/16/2005 11:01:33 AM PST by NormsRevenge
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - After a peaceful election, Iraqis hope their next government will end nearly three years of bloodshed, but rebels and U.S. commanders said on Friday the insurgency was far from finished.
In a sign that some militants will fight on regardless of Thursday's parliamentary poll, three mortar rounds landed near the Interior Ministry in Baghdad. Police said no one was hurt.
Election officials counted and recounted at least 10 million ballots as Iraqis celebrated an election in which many rebellious Sunni Arabs participated for the first time since the fall of Saddam Hussein, pushing turnout to around 70 percent.
Cities were quiet on the final day of a security lockdown that has sealed borders, banned traffic and put tens of thousands of police and soldiers on the streets.
Preliminary results may take several days and a final tally is not expected before a further two weeks.
Insurgents launched few attacks on election day, but some of them said they had only refrained to allow Sunni Arabs to vote.
"This period of elections is a period of truce, but that does not mean we will stop our military activities," said a man calling himself Abu Qutada, a member of the Islamic Army in Iraq, which includes former Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein.
U.S. commanders also said they had no illusions that peace would break out after the election.
"The insurgency is not over," Brigadier General Don Alston, chief of communications for U.S. forces in Iraq, told Reuters.
"Zarqawi is still out there and levels of violence will increase," he said, referring to Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.
Army Gen. George Casey, the U.S. commander in Iraq, said the number of U.S. troops in the country should return to a pre-election "baseline" by the end of January or early February. Numbers were boosted to bolster security for the vote.
With voting seen as closer than in the last election on January 30, which many Sunni Arabs boycotted, top politicians kept a low profile, waiting to see what hand the voters had dealt them before opening coalition negotiations that may last months.
The major test is whether violent differences among ethnic and sectarian groups, all of which are heavily armed, can be resolved inside the new four-year representative parliament.
"I'm sure the negotiations will be tough," said Salaam Ali, a 35-year-old Shi'ite shopkeeper on the unusually calm streets of central Baghdad.
"We hope the elections will bring all Iraqis together -- Shi'ites, Sunnis and others," he said.
SHI'ITE ALLIANCE
The ruling United Iraqi Alliance, a Shi'ite Islamist bloc, is widely expected to remain the biggest group, a forecast supported by a Reuters straw poll of more than 500 voters.
The electoral commission said it believed 10-11 million of Iraq's 15 million eligible voters cast their ballots.
"We'll need a couple of days to know a precise number, electoral commissioner Farid Ayar told Reuters, cautioning Iraqis not to expect a definitive tally until early January.
The commission is expecting to face dozens of complaints from parties feeling cheated by irregularities in the vote. All will need to be investigated, perhaps delaying the final result.
The Reuters poll indicated the Shi'ite alliance was still dominant in the south and its Kurdish allies in the north. There also seemed to be strong support for former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a Shi'ite who heads a secular, cross-sectarian slate.
"He's a strong man and has the ability to tackle difficult issues," said Kamal Abdulathim, 35, who voted for Allawi in the mixed Shi'ite-Sunni city of Baquba in central Iraq.
It may take over two weeks to allocate the 275 seats in the parliament, which must then elect a president and two deputies. They will ask the biggest bloc in parliament to name a prime minister, who must win a simple majority in the assembly.
"The Iraqi political parties will be looking for their best deal ... but it's going to take time," one Western diplomat said. "I do not expect this to be a rapid process."
Among the more taxing challenges facing the government will be amending the new constitution, pushed through parliament and ratified by an October referendum despite fierce opposition from Sunni Arabs, who have been promised it will be reviewed.
They complain the charter's emphasis on regional autonomy could give too much power and control of Iraq's vast oil reserves to Kurds in the north and Shi'ites in the south.
The United States hopes the vote will allow it gradually to withdraw its 155,000 troops. So do most Iraqis, surveys show.
An Iranian leader described the election in former foe Iraq as "a victory" that would hasten the departure of U.S. troops.
"We knew from the beginning that the Americans would drown in a quagmire in Iraq and that is what happened," former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told worshippers at prayers in Tehran.
(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy, Luke Baker, Deepa Babington, Paul Tait and Omar al-Ibadi in Baghdad and Faris al- Mehdawi in Baquba and Paul Hughes in Tehran)
Iraqi election officials carry boxes with ballots to deliver them for general counting in central Baghdad December 16, 2005. (Ceerwan Aziz/Reuters)
Iraqi election workers Raja Almohaisen, left, Rajaa Abdulhussain, center, and Basima Alaridhi look at the images taken of their group at an Iraqi national elections voting center in Dearborn, Mich., Thursday, Dec. 15, 2005. Iraqi expatriates across the globe will help elect Iraq's 275-member National Assembly, which will legislate in the coming four years and choose the first fully constitutional government in that country since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's rule in 2003. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Thousands of Iraqis fill a road during Friday prayers a day after parliamentary elections were held in Iraq in Baghdad's Sadr city December 16, 2005. Iraqi leaders will begin staking their claims to power after an election that brought out Iraqis in overwhelming numbers to elect a government. Results may take days, while talks on a coalition government reconciling ethnic and sectarian divisions may last for weeks. REUTERS/Ali Jasim
Job well done, Citizens of Iraq, Well done, indeed.
Didn't the insurgents just blow 4 Iraqi kids to kiddies and BITS today?
Great news for Iraq. As to the terrorist, the only way is if the Iraqi people join in turning in the terrorist.
Yes they did. And they will continue to do it.
But such acts only seal their doom in Iraq. The Iraqi people are starting to see that they don't have to put up with it, and they seem to be actively opposing it.
Things are looking up but the metric of success is the extent that we are 'standing down'.
The killing of Iraqi civilians and the "first responders" won't end, not until the Iraqis themselves say "No more!" and rat out every one of the "insurgents" still in the country. Somebody has seen their movements, they know in which locations the insurgents have been hiding, they know the movements of the suspicious parties, and most importantly, they let the authorities know what is going on.
Our troop levels will decrease, but we will have a presence IN Iraq for decades. As we should. It makes sense in the same ways that it did for us to leave troops in Japan, Germany, Korea, etc. for a long time. Add to that the reality of continued "insurgent" attacks, just like in Israel (the only other real democracy in the Middle East). The fact that Iraqis aren't jewish is beside the point.
more pix ---
http://photoshow.comcast.net/watch/JY8xs3uG
awesome. *goosebumps*
send the link along to your email lists!
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