All is calm as Iraqis vote

BAGHDAD, Iraq — In a day remarkable for its calm, millions of Iraqis cast ballots across this war-torn country Thursday to elect a Parliament to a four-year term, with Sunni Arabs turning out in what appeared to be heavy numbers and guerrillas staging relatively few attacks.

Iraqi officials said that initial indications were that as many as 11 million people cast ballots, which, if the estimate holds, would put the overall turnout at more than 70 percent of the 15.5 million eligible voters. With Iraqis still lining up to vote in front of ballot centers as the sun went down, officials ordered the polls to stay open an extra hour.

• CNN reported that Iraq's deputy interior minister said Iraqi security forces last year caught terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi but released him because they didn't realize who he was. Hussein Kamal said the Jordanian-born leader of al-Qaida in Iraq was in custody sometime last year, but he wouldn't provide further details, CNN reported. Al-Zarqawi, who has claimed responsibility for several attacks in Iraq along with the kidnappings and beheadings of foreigners, has a $25 million bounty on his head.

• President Bush declared the vote "a major step forward" in creating a democratic nation that he said would set an example for others in the region. White House officials said they were particularly satisfied at the large Sunni Arab turnout and the relatively few attacks by insurgents. "There's a lot of joy, as far as I'm concerned, in seeing the Iraqi people accomplish this major milestone in the march to democracy," Bush said in the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon, about three hours after the polls had closed in Iraq. "Millions of people voted. And I haven't seen all the tabulations of the vote, but we're certain that the turnout was significant and that the violence was down."

In the country's Sunni Arab neighborhoods, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who had boycotted the election in January came out this time. "Last time, if you voted, you died," said Abdul Jabbar Mahdi, a Sunni who brought his wife and three children to a polling station in the ordinarily tense Baghdad neighborhood of Adhamiya. "God willing, this election will lead to peace."

The day was strikingly peaceful, even in areas normally beset by violence. With more than 375,000 American and Iraqi troops and police spread out across the country, the American command here reported 52 attacks, fewer than usual, with 18 of those against polling centers. In January, when Iraqis elected a transitional government, insurgents attacked nearly 300 times, a third of the time against polling places.