CHESTERTON QVELLS:

Iraqis vote on new constitution (EDWARD WONG and DEXTER FILKINS, 10/14/05, The New York Times)

Iraqis walked through silent streets on Saturday morning to begin voting on a new constitution that, if passed, would mark a major step toward the formation of the country's first full-term government since the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

Some of the voters marched to polling centers with their closest friends or family members, others alone. Blue-uniformed Iraqi policemen with Kalashnikovs guarded the centers, mostly schools, and frisked people while American troops sat in tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles nearby. In Baghdad, helicopters buzzed low over dun-colored rooftops.

Virtually all civilian cars had been banned from the streets because of strict security rules mirroring those put in place during elections last January. [...]

After the country's 6,100 polling centers opened their doors at 7 a.m., people began lining up to get the paper ballots, check off "yes" or "no" for the constitution and drop the sheets into boxes. They then stamped their index fingers with purple ink to show they had voted.

"I came to vote for Iraq," said Fayek al-Ani, a businessman in a collared shirt walking into a polling center in downtown Baghdad. "The most important thing is that I came to vote."

Passage of the constitution, whose final draft was approved only this week after months of tough negotiations among Iraqi political parties, is seen as crucial for moving the democratic process forward.

The Bush administration says such progress in turn would lead to greater stability and a partial reduction of the approximately 140,000 American troops here.

The document is expected to serve as a legal foundation for wide-ranging issues, from the Islamic character of the state to the powers of lawmakers and government officials. Its approval would lead to elections in mid-December for a full-term parliament with the power to appoint a government.

Political professionals in the U.S. fret about the weather on Election Day--imagine if the forecast called for bombs? Even the folks on the Left and far Right who opposed removing Saddam have to admire the people of Iraq on a day like this.

MORE:
Sunni Bombs and Guards Greet Iraq Vote: Disaffected Minority Attacks Party Offices, Secures Polls on Eve of Ballot on Charter (Ellen Knickmeyer, Steve Fainaru and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, October 15, 2005, Washington Post)

Iraq's Sunni Arab minority made a violent reentry into politics Friday, bombing offices of a political party that urged support for a new U.S.-backed constitution while posting insurgents and tribal fighters at some polling places to ensure that Sunni voters could vote safely Saturday against the proposed charter. [...]

Throughout the day Friday, bombs in Baghdad and western towns tore through offices of the leading Sunni political party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, which formally broke with most other Sunni groups Thursday to call for the draft's approval.

While the attacks were going on, branches of the party in the west announced they were splitting with the headquarters in Baghdad. In Fallujah, crowds gathered around an Iraqi Islamic Party office set ablaze by guerrillas from Abu Musab Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq movement, chanting "No!" to the constitution.

At the main Sunni mosque in the largest western city, Ramadi, fistfights broke out between supporters and opponents of the draft charter.

Overnight, families who live near polling centers in the Sunni-dominated west packed up and fled after two days of bomb attacks on the voting sites by insurgents. "I fear what will happen Saturday," said Emad Ahmed, head of one of a dozen families who evacuated one neighborhood in Ramadi on Friday.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Zarqawi, a Jordanian, and infused with foreign fighters, distributed leaflets in the west pledging punishment for all who voted Saturday. "We have warned; we shall not be blamed," one leaflet read.

But six insurgent groups led by Iraqis countered with a call for restraint by their foreign allies. In one of the first signs that some Iraqi insurgents were eschewing violence for politics, Muhammad's Army, the Mujaheddin Army and other organizations based in Ramadi said in a statement that Zarqawi's group "should not get involved in minor fights that only serve the occupation."

The statement, distributed at Ramadi mosques, said that voting by Sunnis would "answer the Iraqi and American politicians who claim that the resistance has no political agenda."

It was not clear whether the statement represented the views of the groups' disparate leaders.

In Taji, just north of Baghdad, an insurgent leader who served in Hussein's intelligence services oversaw guerrillas providing security at polling places on the eve of the referendum. As a reporter watched, he chastised a fellow insurgent for bombing another site.

In the far west, tribal fighters in heavily Sunni Anbar province deployed to protect some polling centers. Men holding AK-47 assault rifles took up posts at some sites in Fallujah. In Ramadi, however, local tribes reneged on a pledge to protect the polls, telling authorities that Zarqawi's group had posted a death threat on the gate of the home of a tribal sheik, said Khidhir Mohammed, head of the Anbar Provincial Council.

Iraqi military forces mobilized, under U.S. guard, to get ballots out to voting centers. For seven hours Friday, the Iraqi army delivered ballots to seven polling sites in the predominantly Sunni Arab town of Ishaqi and surrounding villages in Salahuddin province.

Seems a tad rough to accuse the entire Sunni population of the bombings, no?

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 15, 2005 8:08 AM