BUT SADDAM SWORE WE OUTNUMBERED THEM:

Iraq's Shiite Hub Awaits Its Day: Najaf Prepares to Endorse Charter, but Rifts Are Apparent (Jonathan Finer, October 13, 2005, Washington Post)

Families gather in the festive streets after dark during the holy month of Ramadan, munching sweets after a day of fasting. Iraqi soldiers -- who recently assumed control over Najaf from U.S. forces -- doff their helmets to chat with residents. And throngs of worshipers in this spiritual capital of Shiite Islam, where large religious demonstrations were proscribed under President Saddam Hussein, stroll hand-in-hand under strands of colored lights to pray at the Imam Ali shrine, one of their sect's most sacred sites.

Such scenes are impossible to imagine in many other parts of Iraq, where daily violence keeps many people from venturing out except when they absolutely have to.

Since sweeping to power 8 1/2 months ago in the first elections since Hussein's fall, Iraq's long-persecuted Shiite majority has proved all but unstoppable in its quest to remake the country its way. Few places have profited from the ascendancy as much as Najaf, a city of 500,000 awash in reconstruction projects and only intermittently plagued by insurgent attacks. When the country votes again Saturday, this time on whether to approve a draft constitution mostly written by Shiite leaders, Najafis are expected to endorse it overwhelmingly.

"This is my city, my father's city and his father's city, and the golden age will come after the referendum, when we vote yes," said Abbas Moadal, the provincial police chief whose biography parallels his people's difficult rise to power. He helped lead a Shiite uprising that was crushed by Hussein in 1991, then left Iraq as a penniless refugee in 1993. After 12 years of running a dollar store in Detroit, he returned two months ago.

"In Iraq, we are the majority," he said, "and we are finally taking our rights."

Anne Garrels, not always the most perceptive correspondent in Iraq, did a story yesterday where she mentioned in passing that many Sunni still don't believe they aren't the majority in Iraq. When their leaders get them to turn out for the next two votes and they still get pummeled they're in for a rude awakening.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 13, 2005 8:03 AM