Robert Fisk on Iraq Elections: Iraqis Voting for "Freedom From Foreign Occupation"

Millions of Iraqis turned out to cast ballots Sunday in the country's first multi-party elections in half a century.

At least 44 people were killed and over 100 wounded in suicide bombings, shootings and mortar attacks. The attacks came amid unprecedented levels of security - including shoot-on-sight curfews, closed foreign borders, a ban on cars and travel restrictions within Iraq.

Iraqi voters headed to more than 30,000 polling stations set up across the country, with the polling beginning at 7 a.m. and ending at 5 p.m. Election officials originally said 72 percent of the country's 13 million registered voters turned out to vote. They later revised the number to 8 million, or just over 60 percent.

With foreign monitors mostly staying away for fear of kidnapping, it was difficult to assess the fairness of the election or accuracy of the turnout estimates. But the U.N.'s electoral adviser in Iraq, Carlos Valenzuela, said he was encouraged by early indications.

Meanwhile in at a news conference in Washington, President Bush hailed the elections as a resounding success.

* President Bush, White House press conference, January 30, 2005.

President Bush speaking yesterday at the White House. While officials in Washington hailed the Iraq elections as a resounding success in democracy, there was a marked division in voting turnout within the country. The turnout was high in Shia and Kurdish-dominated regions, but in Sunni areas the number of voters was much lower. In Samarra for example, streets were reportedly deserted and fewer than 1,400 ballots were cast by a population of 200,000. Tens of thousands of Iraqi expatriates in 14 other countries also voted.

Iraqis were electing a 275-member transitional National Assembly, which will draft a new constitution, and pick the country's next president and two vice presidents. The president, in turn, will select a prime minister. Preliminary results are expected in about six days, with a full result not due for 10 days.

Robert Fisk, chief Middle East correspondent for the London Independent, writes in his latest article, "It was the sight of thousands of Shias, the women in black "hijab" covering, the men in leather jackets or long robes, the children toddling beside them, that took the breath away. If Osama bin Laden had called these elections an apostasy, many did not heed his Wahabi threats. They came to claim their rightful power in the land - that is why Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the grand marja of the Shias of Iraq, told them to vote - and woe betide the US and British if they do not get it."

* Robert Fisk, chief Middle East correspondent for the London Independent.

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