Vote Raises Hopes in War Against Rebels

After a strong turnout in this weekend’s vote and fewer casualties than many expected, Iraqi and American authorities are looking for new ways to drain the insurgency’s energy and capitalize on momentum from the election.

U.S. officials said Monday that insurgents had launched 260 attacks on election day, almost an unprecedented number, but that only a fraction of them had been deadly. Thirty-three Iraqis and one American were slain in the assaults, which also killed 31 militants.

“The election and the turnout send a message to the insurgency. The Iraqi people ignored the insurgents’ moral argument that the elections weren’t possible under occupation, and they disregarded the insurgents’ strategic argument that people would be stopped from getting to the polls by attacks,” said Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Officials credited the extraordinary security measures that brought much of the country to a halt. Car traffic was all but prohibited, strict curfews were imposed, and vacations were canceled for Iraqi security organizations. U.S.-led forces were deployed near polling places, ready to intervene at a moment’s notice.

Although apparently effective for a single day, such measures, diplomats and military analysts say, can’t be sustained. Instead, they say, this may be the moment for politicians to negotiate with insurgents, dividing those who want political power from those whose stance is more nihilistic. It may also be useful to ask the Iraqi public to rally against intimidation, they say.

“The government should use this [election] to turn around and say to the insurgency, ‘The only way to settle this is a political settlement,’ ” Dodge said. “The insurgency cannot be beaten with an outright military assault.”

Still, it would be difficult for the Iraqi government to build on the energy from Sunday’s balloting. The insurgents are well armed and unlikely to give up easily, and they operate in a diffuse network under scattered command. Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said that although the election dealt them a major blow, “there will still be some acts of violence.”

On Monday, three Marines were killed in action south of Baghdad, the military reported, and insurgents tried to shell the government center in Ramadi, a city west of Baghdad where violence has been intense.

Militants also claimed to be responsible for bringing down a British C-130 plane Sunday, killing 10 military personnel.

The government in London had not yet determined the cause of the crash, but several military experts said the plane appeared to have been downed by hostile fire, based on the distribution of the debris.

Data provided by U.S. officials indicate that insurgents apparently spared no effort to disrupt Sunday’s polling. The 260 attacks were four to five times that of a typical day in Iraq. They comprised 103 attacks on polling sites, five on infrastructure, 125 on U.S. and multinational soldiers, 26 on Iraqi forces and 109 on civilians. The numbers add up to more than 260 because the military assigns some incidents to multiple categories.

The dead included eight members of Iraqi security forces, one soldier in the U.S.-led coalition and 25 Iraqi civilians.

There were at least eight suicide attacks, with all but one involving assailants wearing explosive belts. The use of such a large number of suicide bombers to kill a relatively small number of Iraqis suggests that the insurgents were unable to surmount Iraqi security forces’ measures to block bombers.

“What is significant about the attacks is their low lethality,” said a U.S. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There were no polling stations seized, no election officers captured, no polling stations torched.”

U.S. officials praised the Iraqi security forces’ efforts but cautioned that much work remained to make them self-sufficient and capable of routinely deterring attacks.

“You can’t read all too much into this,” the diplomat said. “But what you can read into it is that [the security forces] were on this day at that time and place, these people were consistently motivated.”

The mood at the Pentagon was likewise circumspect. “The attitude around here is surprisingly muted,” a senior defense official said Monday. “Obviously, things went pretty well, but I think there’s a feeling that we need to wait a while to figure out what yesterday really means in terms of where the insurgency goes from here.”

Early results from the election had not yet been announced Monday. Local polling stations worked through the night to count ballots, and by Monday afternoon the count at all 5,200 stations nationwide was complete, Associated Press reported. Local centers were forwarding tally sheets and ballots to Baghdad, where vote totals will be compiled with the aid of computers and then announced.

The turnout was highest in areas home to Shiite Muslims and Kurds and lowest in those populated by Sunni Arabs, particularly north and west of the capital.

In Ramadi, the capital of Al Anbar province west of Baghdad, balloting was slight after a campaign of intimidation by insurgents, who vowed to kill anyone who voted. Even religious leaders called for a boycott of the election.

Along with suppressing voter turnout, insurgents’ threats prevented most public employees in Ramadi from showing up for work. Garbage was piled in the streets, the police had fled, sewers were broken and water and electricity services spotty.

Although U.S.-led assaults in April and November on insurgents in nearby Fallouja received more news coverage, the struggle between American forces and guerrillas in Ramadi has been protracted and bloody. With the election over, officials expect insurgents to escalate the violence in Ramadi, and troops there don’t plan to change their tactics.

“Our mission doesn’t change at all,” said Lt. Phillip Sprincin, executive officer of Weapons Company of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Marine Division.

Marines in Ramadi say they have three main objectives: arresting or killing insurgents, finding weapons and explosives and working with officials and others who might help to reestablish local government.

James Dobbins, a former U.S. ambassador who specializes in post-conflict situations, said the anti-insurgency effort depended on maximizing Sunni Arab representation in the new government. Though it may be impossible to co-opt many insurgents, he believes the government can win the support of those who back the rebellion but haven’t taken up arms.

“You don’t win an insurgency by killing the insurgents, you win by marginalizing” them, Dobbins said. “That’s only going to occur if a significant element of the Sunni community is brought into the governing process.”

Times staff writers Tony Perry in Ramadi, John Daniszewski in London and Mark Mazzetti and Sonni Efron in Washington contributed to this report.