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Iraq

Troops, ballots ready for election

BAGHDAD - Troops were in place, the borders were closed and the ballots were ready early today ahead of Iraqi parliamentary elections the United States hopes will build democracy and lay the groundwork for American troops to begin returning home.

A coalition of Shiite religious parties, which dominate the current government, was expected to win the largest number of seats - but not enough to form a new administration without alliances with rival groups.

With Sunni insurgent groups promising not to attack the polls, high voter turnout was expected.

However, police arrested two suspected insurgents carrying 72 bombs, police Lt. Col. Ahmed Hajoul said. He said the pair said they planned to hide the bombs Wednesday night in the largely Shiite city of Hillah to explode when the polls opened.

A loud explosion also was heard in central Baghdad shortly before 1 a.m. today, hours after police said several mortar shells exploded in southwest Baghdad, setting some shops on fire.

Rumors also swept the Iraqi capital early today that the water supply had been poisoned after warnings against drinking tap water were broadcast through mosque loudspeakers, but they were quickly denied by the Health Ministry.

Most of Baghdad's streets were eerily quiet Wednesday, with police strictly enforcing a traffic ban. Only an occasional siren, a sporadic gunshot, a U.S. helicopter or shouts from boys playing soccer could be heard.

Up to 15-million Iraqis were to choose 275 members of the new parliament from among 7,655 candidates running on 996 tickets, representing Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish, Turkomen and sectarian interests across a wide political spectrum.

"Let us make tomorrow a national celebration, a day of national unity and victory over terrorism and those who oppose our democratic march," President Jalal Talabani told a nationwide television audience.

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 participate in politics, and he accused them of conspiring with the Americans against the mostly Sunni insurgents.

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.

Rumors, denied by the Interior Ministry, also swept Baghdad that a tanker truck filled with thousands of blank ballots had been smuggled into the country from Shiite-dominated Iran.

The Bush administration has sent some of its top communications strategists to Iraq for today's election of the country's first permanent, democratically elected government.

Among those on the ground are Jim Wilkinson, senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and State Department press officer Tom Casey. From the White House, National Security Council communications adviser Michele Davis has been dispatched.

President Bush has described the election as a "watershed moment." He is wagering that the election will be successful and signal that his war plan is working.

[Last modified December 15, 2005, 00:33:15]