Bush praises Iraqis’ courage

WASHINGTON – After months of grim news and futile efforts to stem the deadly insurgency in Iraq, President Bush declared Sunday’s Iraqi national election a “resounding success” and said “the world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East.”

Appearing outside the White House Blue Room about four hours after the polls closed, Bush paid tribute to Iraqis and others killed Sunday, praised the bravery of voters who defied death threats and pledged continued efforts to prepare Iraqi forces to replace American troops.

“In great numbers, and under great risk, Iraqis have shown their commitment to democracy,” he said in a brief televised statement that was not previously announced by the White House.

“By participating in free elections, the Iraqi people have firmly rejected the anti-democratic ideology of the terrorists,” Bush said. “They have refused to be intimidated by thugs and assassins. And they have demonstrated the kind of courage that is always the foundation of self-government.”

The president did not take questions.

Bush and Condoleezza Rice, the new secretary of state and former national security adviser, warned that insurgent attacks would continue and that Sunday’s vote is just one step along the path to democracy.

Both also shied away from specific predictions about what Sunday’s election would mean for Iraq in the weeks and months ahead or for the eventual withdrawal of American forces.

Since the summer of 2003, senior administration officials have repeatedly cited events on the ground in Iraq as turning points or said that the insurgency was in its last, desperate days and that an end to the violence was just around the corner.

But Bush and Rice generally avoided such suggestions Sunday, adopting a more cautious tone. During four television interviews, Rice only once came close to suggesting that the election would prove to be a turning point in a war far more costly and far more deadly than the White House had predicted when it dispatched U.S. troops nearly two years ago.

“This is the start of a new day for Iraq,” she said on “Fox News Sunday.”

The administration’s optimistic but cautious statements followed weeks of efforts to lower expectations and emphasize the need to include Iraq’s minority Sunni population in the process that will follow the seating of the 275-member Transitional National Assembly elected Sunday.

That assembly, which will replace an interim government picked mostly by the United States, is to draft a new constitution. The constitution’s approval is scheduled to be followed by the seating of a permanent government.

Voter turnout reportedly was low in Sunni areas where the insurgency has been strongest. Analysts and some administration officials have warned that a government elected without Sunni participation could aggravate tensions and produce even more violence.

Rice emphasized Sunday the need to draw in Sunnis during the coming weeks.

“The most important point is, of course, that this is a first step for the Iraqis on the process,” she said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” The Shiites and Kurds who expected to gain the most from Sunday’s election, she said, also “understand the desire and the need to build one Iraq, that the constitutional process is going to be one in which all Iraqis are represented.”

Bush did not mention the need to find a way to draw Sunnis into the political process but he did say, “There is more distance to travel on the road to democracy.”

Bush also predicted Sunday that terrorists and “insurgents will continue to wage their war against democracy,” adding, “we will support the Iraqi people in their fight against them.”

Rice was more explicit.

“I suspect that the insurgents will try to demonstrate that despite today’s vote, that they are still a very viable force, and … they’re very, very brutal intimidators. And I don’t expect that to go away,” she said on Fox.