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BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqis voted in a historic parliamentary election Thursday, with strong turnout reported in Sunni Arab areas and even a shortage of ballots in some precincts. Several explosions rocked Baghdad throughout the day, but the level of violence was low. The Iraqi election commission extended voting in the country by an hour because of the high turnout. The heavy participation by the Sunnis, who had shunned balloting last January, bolstered U.S. hopes of calming the insurgency enough to begin withdrawing its troops next year.

It's always difficult to counter the simplistic bumper-sticker logic of the anti-war left precisely because of its simplicity. Nonetheless, I've been trying to think of an easy-to-understand bumper-sticker length mantra that supporters of victory can adopt, and I think John Murtha may have inadvertantly given us one: "403 to 3!" I may be misperceiving the general mood of the country, but ever since the Murtha/House showdown, I'm sensing a renewed interest in victory and a renewed sense of appreciation for how much has been accomplished in Iraq. At the very least, that House vote seems to have taken the wind...

Camp Fallujah, Iraq -- The first democratically-elected city council of Fallujah held its inaugural meeting today at the Civil-Military Operations Center in Fallujah. The 20-member council met for approximately two hours, during which time they elected the chairman, vice chairman and secretary of the council. Imams, sheiks, engineers, lawyers, educators, administrators and businessmen are among those who make up the council. Sheik Khalid Hammoud Mahal al-Joumaily, newly-elected chairman, said “We are happy with the free democratic process which led to a successful election.” Mohamed Hussain Alzobai, representative of the Provincial Council, attended the meeting and offered words of encouragement to...

Preparations for the Jan. 30 national election are on track despite continuing violence and calls for delaying or boycotting the vote, the U.N. election chief in Iraq says. "I won't say I am happy, but I am satisfied with the process," Carlos Valenzuela told The Associated Press in an interview. "People tend to have these very unrealistic expectations about elections. ... They are not a panacea, but they seem to me at least at this moment the one way to go that would help the transitional process" in Iraq. Valenzuela heads a team of 20 U.N. staff in Iraq and...

President Bush: “Time after time, observers have questioned whether this country, or that people, or this group are 'ready' for democracy—-as if freedom were a prize you win for meeting our own Western standards of progress.” His idea—-that there is no necessary connection between Western political traditions and the success of democracy—-is important. But is it true? Today his hypothesis is being tested in Iraq, where an old baseball joke is pertinent. A manager says, “Our team is just two players away from being a championship team. Unfortunately, the two players are Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.” Iraq is just...

The Iraq that is emerging in the post-war will be an extremely confusing place for some time to come. Yesterday, Jay Garner, the American who heads the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, landed in Baghdad among the first of many hundred ORHA officials. Asked what his greatest challenge would be, he said: "Everything is the challenge." A remarkably calm, folksy, understated man, Lt. Gen. Garner (Ret.) would not have been kidding. Repairing infrastructure (including the large south Baghdad electrical plant that was more effectively sabotaged than first reports indicated -- U.S. and Iraqi engineers have been working on it...