Lack of violence, high voter turnout please Rice, Bush

U.S. officials see the success of the charter as key to defeating the insurgency.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration celebrated Saturday a relatively violence-free day of voting in Iraq as officials awaited word on whether the results would mark progress in the path toward democracy and the return home of U.S. troops.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she was pleased that Iraqis appeared peaceful and enthusiastic about exercising their right to vote on whether to accept a proposed new constitution.
"That's been our principal concern, that the Iraqis have this opportunity to go and voice their views on this constitution," Rice told reporters as she flew from Moscow to London on a trip focused on Iran's nuclear program.
"That's what they are doing."
President Bush, spending the weekend at Camp David, was encouraged by initial estimates showing a high overall turnout of about 61 percent and reports of no major attacks, spokesman Allen Abney said.
Insurgents attacked five of Baghdad's 1,200 polling stations, but no one was killed. The only deaths reported were those of three Iraqi soldiers hit by a roadside bomb far from a polling site.
"Today's vote deals a severe blow to the ambitions of the terrorists and sends a clear message to the world that the people of Iraq will decide the future of their country through peaceful elections, not violent insurgency," Abney said.
Draft charter
The vote was on the fate of a draft charter hammered out in months of negotiations.
Rice called last-minute amendments, which brought some in the disaffected Sunni-Arab minority, a "real sign" that Shiites and Kurds wanted to reach out to Sunnis. "That's a good thing," she said.
But to many Sunnis, the U.S.-brokered deal to win their support delays solving basic problems of power-sharing among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
They claim the agreement only papers over the cleavages in a religiously, ethnically and culturally mixed society.
Amid a surprisingly large turnout in several key heavily Sunni provinces, many voters said they were voting against the constitution. If two-thirds of voters in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces vote "no," the charter will not be approved.
If adopted, the draft charter would provide the basis for a general election in two months for a full-term parliament.
Results were not expected until tonight or Monday.
Tied to troop withdrawal
The U.S. views success in the election as critical to undermining the insurgency and being able to begin phasing out the U.S. military presence in Iraq that is increasingly unpopular with the American public.
Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, speaking for the Democrats in their weekly radio address, said that, despite the vote, Bush was "long overdue" in spelling out how many capable Iraqi forces are needed before U.S. troops can come home, how quarreling factions in Iraq can be reconciled around a new government and how to reconstruct Iraq with less corruption.
Less than 40 percent in an AP-Ipsos poll taken in October said they approved of the way Bush was handling Iraq.
Just over half of the public now say the Iraq war was a mistake.
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