U.S. on edge before Iraqi voting

WASHINGTON — In the run-up to Iraq's elections, the State Department's spokesman this week ticked off the final markers of progress: 130 planeloads of voting materials had landed in Iraq, including 90,000 ballot boxes and 60 million ballots — a flurry of up to 15 flights a day to Iraqi airfields. In a last-minute American role, officials said, the U.S. military will assist today in distributing the equipment to polling stations.

To ease a bad case of nerves spreading among Iraq's neighbors, the Bush administration has also scrambled in recent days to assuage alarm about the potential consequences of — and spillover from — Iraq's elections on the region, U.S. officials said.

But as Sunday's voting begins, the Bush administration can do little more than hold its breath and wait as Iraqis decide whether to participate in the historic balloting. The elections are the biggest test yet for the costly and complex U.S. military intervention in Iraq aimed at ousting Saddam Hussein almost two years ago, U.S. officials acknowledged.

President Bush on Friday declared the process a success simply because the elections will go ahead despite the escalating attacks by insurgents and the myriad political pressures to delay the vote.

"Freedom is on the march, and the world is better for it," Bush said at the formal swearing-in of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Bush lauded Iraqis for their courage in refusing "to surrender their future to these killers."

The president also predicted that Iraq's fledgling democracy will become "a powerful example to reformers throughout the entire Middle East."

"On Sunday, the Iraqi people will be joining millions in other parts of the world who now decide their future through free votes," Bush told the foreign diplomatic corps at Rice's swearing-in.

Based on the most recent U.S. polling, the administration is cautiously optimistic about the turnout, which may prove to be the main barometer of the elections, since no international monitoring group will be deployed at polling stations to assess whether the voting is free and fair. The U.S. survey, conducted this month, shows that 50 percent to 60 percent of Iraqis are "very likely" or "intend" to vote in most areas, according to a senior State Department official.

More than 60 percent showed interest in voting in northern Kurdish areas and major southern Shiite cities such as Basra, Najaf, Karbala and Hilla. In hot spots in the volatile Sunni triangle, such as Tikrit and Baqubah, the numbers drop to about a third of eligible voters, the official said.