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Iraq

Iraq starts early parliamentary voting

BAGHDAD - Soldiers, patients and prisoners began voting Monday in national elections, three days ahead of the general population, while insurgents denounced the balloting as a "satanic project" but did not threaten to attack polling stations.

The early voting went ahead despite the sound of detonations rumbling across the capital and at least 15 deaths in ongoing violence.

A U.S. soldier was killed Monday in a bombing in Baghdad, and another American soldier died the day before in a suicide bombing near Ramadi, the U.S. command said.

President Bush offered encouraging words to Iraqi voters but cautioned that the parliamentary elections "won't be perfect."

"Iraqis still have more difficult work ahead, and our coalition and a new Iraqi government will face many challenges," the president said in a speech in Philadelphia.

Asked about the number of Iraqi casualties from the war and the insurgency, Bush said, "I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis." White House counselor Dan Bartlett later said that the number was not an official figure but that Bush was simply repeating estimates reported in the media.

In a rare joint statement, Al-Qaida in Iraq and four other Islamic extremist groups denounced the election as a "satanic project" and said that "to engage in the so-called political process" violates "the legitimate policy approved by God."

However, the statement contained no clear threat to disrupt voting as in the runup to the Jan. 30 election and the Oct. 15 referendum on the constitution.

The authenticity of the statement could not be verified, but it appeared on a Web site that often publishes extremist material.

The absence of a clear-cut threat could reflect the growing interest among Sunni Arabs, the foundation of the insurgency, to take part in the election. The Sunni boycott of the January ballot left Parliament in the hands of Shiites and Kurds - a move that increased communal friction and cost the Sunnis considerable influence in drafting the constitution.

In the first day of early voting, about 250,000 Iraqis - soldiers, police, hospital patients and prisoners - cast ballots, according to election official Abdul-Hussein Hendawi.

The U.S.-led multinational force said 90 percent of all eligible detainees held in facilities under its control participated in the vote. It did not release the number represented by that percentage. Suspected insurgents held in detention but not convicted were eligible to vote, officials said.

Deposed leader Saddam Hussein, who is jailed and facing trial for the deaths of more than 140 Shiites in 1982, could also vote, but it was not known if he did.

Abroad, an estimated 1.5-million expatriate Iraqis will begin voting today over a two-day period in polling centers in 15 countries including the United States.

Most of the 15-million registered voters go to the polls Thursday.

Sunni Arab politicians have promised an end to what they term abuse at the hands of the Shiite-dominated security services. As voting began, the Human Rights Ministry and the U.S. military said that 13 prisoners were hospitalized after being found at an overcrowded prison run by the Shiite-led Interior Ministry.

Later Monday, Al-Jazeera television aired a video allegedly showing abuse at another Interior Ministry facility in western Baghdad. The footage showed dozens of men, many with welts and bruises. The station did not say how it obtained the footage or when the alleged incidents took place.

Bush said Iraqi prisoners held in secret detention centers apparently were beaten and tortured.

"This conduct is unacceptable," Bush said in the Philadelphia speech. "Those who committed these crimes must be held to account."

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, ordered an investigation into what he described as an "unhealthy phenomenon."

A similar case also surfaced last month.

[Last modified December 13, 2005, 01:31:15]