Iraqi electoral commission to audit 'unusually high' numbers in referendum results
By Thomas Wagner, Associated Press | October 17, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq's electoral commission said Monday it intended to audit "unusually high" numbers in results coming from most provinces in the country's landmark referendum on the draft constitution.
The U.S. military said, meanwhile, that its warplanes and helicopters bombed two western villages Sunday, killing an estimated 70 militants near a site where five American soldiers died in a roadside blast. Residents said at least 39 of the dead were civilians.
The electoral commission's statement came as Sunni Arab lawmaker Meshaan al-Jubouri claimed fraud had occurred in Saturday's election -- including instances of voting in hotly contested regions by pro-constitution Shiites from other areas -- repeating earlier comments made by other Sunni officials over the weekend.
"Statements coming from most provinces indicating such high numbers ... require us to recheck, compare and audit them, as they are unusually high according to the international standards," the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq said in a statement.
The commission said it would take random samples from some ballot boxes to check the results.
An official with knowledge of the election process said that in some areas the proportion of "yes" or "no" votes seemed unusual. The official cautioned that it was too early to say whether the unusual figures were actually incorrect or what caused the high or low numbers.
The commission and the official did not specify what regions had the unusual numbers.
Voting was believed to have been highly polarized between Sunni Arabs, who largely oppose the charter, and Shiites and Kurds, who supported it. The main electoral battlegrounds were provinces with mixed populations, two of which went strongly "yes."
The province of Diyala, for example, is believed to have a slight Sunni Arab majority. But reports from electoral officials there on Sunday reported a 70 percent "yes" vote and a 20 percent "no."
Saying whether that is unusual, however, is also complicated by the fact that Iraq has not had a census for more than 15 years, so judgments of the exact sectarian balance are difficult.
Further delaying the count and the posting of final results, a sandstorm swept over Baghdad on Monday, grounding air travel. Vote tallies still have to be flown in from the provinces, and workers at the central counting center were still examining results only from the capital and its outskirts.
Figures reported by elections officials in the provinces to The Associated Press indicated the constitution appeared to have passed, with the Sunni Arab attempt to veto it falling short.
The acceptance of the constitution would be a major step in setting up a democratic government that could lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Sunday that violence will continue, even if the constitution is adopted. She said support for the insurgency would eventually wane as the country moves toward democracy.
On Saturday, a roadside bomb killed five U.S. soldiers in a vehicle in the Al-Bu Ubaid village on the eastern outskirts of the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi. On Sunday, a group of about two dozen Iraqis gathered around the wreckage; they were hit by U.S. airstrikes, the military and witnesses said.
The military said the crowd was setting another roadside bomb when F-15 warplanes hit them, killing about 20 people it described as "terrorists."
But several residents and one local leader said they were civilians gathering to gawk at and take pieces of the wreckage, as often occurs after an American vehicle is hit. U.S. troops had closed off the area Saturday, so Sunday morning was the first chance for people to go near it.
Tribal leader Chiad Saad said the airstrike killed 25 civilians. Several others said the same, although they refused to give their names for fear for their safety.
The other deaths occurred in the nearby village of Al-Bu Faraj.
The military said gunmen opened fire on a Cobra attack helicopter that spotted their position. The Cobra returned fire, killing about 10. The men ran into a nearby house, where gunmen were seen unloading weapons before an F/A-18 warplane bombed the building, killing 40 insurgents, the military said.
Witnesses said at least 14 of the dead were civilians. After a man was wounded in an airstrike, he was brought into a nearby building that was struck by warplanes, said the witnesses, who refused to give their names out of fear for their safety.
An Iraqi journalist reporting for AP said he later saw the 14 bodies and the damaged building.
Associated Press Television News video showed the dead included two children and one woman. Witnesses said seven other children were among the dead. APTN also showed two children among the wounded.
Few voted in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, on Saturday -- either out of fear of militants' reprisals or out of opposition to the charter.
A U.S. Marine was also killed by a bomb Saturday in Saqlawiyah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, the military said. Since the war began in 2003, at least 1,976 U.S. service members have died, according to an AP count.
On Monday, a drive-by shooting killed two policemen in Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, and a suicide bomber attacked a funeral for a sheik in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding one, police said.
The violence raised to 535 the number of people who have died in insurgent attacks across Iraq in the last three weeks.
Many Sunnis fear the new decentralized government will deprive them of their fair share of the country's vast oil wealth by creating virtually independent mini-states of Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south, while leaving Sunnis isolated in central and western Iraq.
Opponents failed to secure the necessary two-thirds "no" vote in any three of Iraqi's 18 provinces, according to counts that local officials provided to the AP. In the crucial central provinces with mixed ethnic and religious populations, enough Shiites and Kurds voted to stymie the Sunni bid to reject the constitution.
The Sunni "no" campaign appeared to have made the two-thirds threshold in Anbar province, the vast western Sunni heartland where Ramadi is the capital, and in Salahuddin, where Sunnis hold a large majority and as many as 90 percent of voters cast ballots. But in two other provinces where Sunni Arabs have only slim majorities -- Ninevah and Diyala -- the "yes" vote apparently won out.
Sunni leaders responded angrily, some saying they suspected fraud and accusing American officials and the Shiite parties that dominate the government. While a strong Sunni turnout suggested a desire among many to participate in Iraq's new political system, there were fears that anger at being ruled under a constitution they oppose could push some into supporting the Sunni-led insurgency.
If the constitution indeed passed, the first full-term parliament since Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003 will install a new government by Dec. 31 following Dec. 15 elections. If the charter failed, the parliament will be temporary, tasked with drawing up a new draft constitution.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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