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Allawi: Iraqis 'starting to write their future'

Iraqis embraced democracy in large numbers Sunday, standing in long lines to vote in defiance of mortar attacks, suicide bombers and boycott calls.

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Iraqi and U.S. officials hailed the election, the nation's first free vote in a half-century, as a triumph of freedom.

"This is a historic moment for Iraq, a day when Iraqis can hold their heads high because they are challenging the terrorists and starting to write their future with their own hands," said interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

In Washington, President Bush said, "The world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East." He called the election a success and promised the United States would continue training Iraqi soldiers, hoping they can soon secure a country America invaded nearly two years ago to topple Saddam Hussein.

Iraqis, the U.S. president said, had "firmly rejected the antidemocratic ideology" of terrorists.

The vote to elect a 275-member transitional National Assembly and 18 provincial legislatures was only the first step on Iraq's road to self-rule and stability. Once the results are in, it could take weeks of backroom deals before a prime minister and government are picked by the new assembly.

Uncertain Sunni turnout, a string of insurgent attacks and the crash of a British military plane drove home that chaos in Iraq isn't over yet.

At least 44 died in the suicide and mortar attacks on polling stations, including nine suicide bombers. The al-Qaida affiliate led by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for at least four attacks. Most attacks were in Baghdad, but one of the deadliest came in Hillah to the south, when a bomber got onto a minibus carrying voters and detonated his explosives, killing himself and at least four others.

A British C-130 Hercules transport plane crashed north of Baghdad. No cause was given, but Britain's Press Association, quoting military sources, said about 10 British troops were believed to have died.

Elsewhere, one U.S. serviceman died in fighting in the Sunni stronghold of Anbar province west of Baghdad.

Despite the string of attacks that boomed first in the morning and then after dark, a people steeled to violence by years of war, sanctions, the brutality of Hussein's regime, and the U.S. military occupation were not deterred from the polls.

By day's end, there were no official reports on turnout or the results; Iraqi election officials said that could take seven to 10 days, though early results could be released as soon as today.

However, Sunday's heavy turnout surprised many. Long lines were reported in areas that are home to Shiite Muslim Arabs and Kurds, who together account for about 80 percent of the country's 26-million people.

Voters had to fingerprint their ballots as a safeguard against fraud, and across much of Iraq, a purple-stained index finger was a mark of pride.

Many took advantage of an unusually warm January day to make the trip to the polls a family outing. Parents pushed strollers; teenagers assisted elderly grandparents, and educated Iraqis explained the ballot to their illiterate neighbors.

Voters danced at polling sites in the Kurdish north and invoked religious decrees while voting in the southern Shiite Muslim holy cities. Little or no violence was reported across the Kurdish north or most of the Shiite south, though explosions resounded through the capital.

In Baghdad's Karada neighborhood, which is predominantly middle-class and Shiite, voters poured into the high schools and elementary schools that had been transformed into polling places.

"Do you hear that; do you hear the bombs?" said Hassan Jawad, a 33-year-old election worker at Lebanon High School, calling over the thud of an exploding shell.

"We all have to die," Jawad said. "To die for this, well, at least I will be dying for something."

Turnout was said to be lower in the capital's Sunni-dominated neighborhoods like Azimiyah and Gazalia, and in other areas that are home to Sunni Arabs, who are the backbone of the insurgency.

The Los Angeles Times reported that unofficial figures from Anbar province, for example, showed that only about 17,000 of as many as 250,000 eligible voters participated. The unofficial figures showed 1,700 people voted in Ramadi, a city of nearly 400,000 residents; 8,000 in Fallujah, half the size of Ramadi; and about 5,000 in neighboring Nassar Wa Alsalaam, a mostly agricultural community.

The remaining votes came from smaller towns in the vast province that stretches from west of Baghdad to the Syrian, Jordanian and Saudi border.

No such figures were available for other areas.

Nationwide, election officials said 5,171 of the planned 5,230 polling centers opened. But residents said no polling centers opened in the center of the Adhamiya district of Baghdad, a predominantly Sunni area.

Nevertheless, international monitors said, the election went well. After the close of balloting Sunday, a group of electoral officials from 11 nations who were brought in to provide independent oversight gave their seal of approval to the process, and they commended the Iraqis' work.

The oversight group, the International Mission for Iraqi Elections, said that primary monitoring of polling places was provided by more than 50,000 Iraqis who had been trained by groups like the National Democratic Institute and the European Union's Election Support Project. For some areas within the Green Zone, 129 foreign observers did monitor the polling.

The chairman of the election group's steering committee, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, who is Canada's chief electoral officer, stressed that Iraqi parties who had complaints would be heard by his group and had further avenues for appeal if they were still unsatisfied. As of Sunday, no such complaints had been reported.

American officials have stressed that they do not expect even a successful election to quickly ease the insurgency that has killed nearly 1,100 U.S. troops. They also emphasize that the election will do little to hasten the withdrawal of U.S. troops, a matter that depends more on the slow process of training and equipping Iraqi forces.

Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib told the BBC network Sunday that U.S. troops might not be needed after 18 months.

That is much more optimistic than American timetables that envision large numbers of troops in the country for years.

--Information from the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Knight Ridder Newspapers and Cox News Service was used in this report.

[Last modified February 1, 2005, 18:16:40]