Iraq rejects US proposal on vote

BAGHDAD -- Iraq's election body rejected a suggestion from Washington that it adjust the results of next month's vote to benefit the Sunni minority if low turnout in Sunni areas means Shi'ites win an exaggerated majority in the new assembly.

Speaking of ''unacceptable" interference, Electoral Commission spokesman Farid Ayar said: ''Who wins, wins. That is the way it is. That is the way it will be in the election."

US diplomats in Baghdad, at pains to keep their role in the election discreet, declined comment on a New York Times report from Washington that said Sunnis might be granted extra seats if the community's vote was judged to have been too low.

US officials have expressed concern that if the ballot on Jan. 30 fails to reflect Iraq's sectarian and ethnic mix because of violence and boycotts in Sunni areas, then the assembly will lack legitimacy. But any attempt to fix the proportion of seats going to the main groups in advance could have the same effect.

''The Americans are expressing their views, and those aren't always the same as the commission's," Ayar said. ''But the commission is absolutely independent. It is not acceptable for anyone to interfere in our business."

Some leaders among Sunni Arabs, a 20 percent minority who dominated the country under Saddam Hussein and before, have called for the election to be put off because violence in the north and west will make it hard for Sunnis to vote.

But Shi'ites, who account for 60 percent of the 26 million population, are keen to exercise their electoral weight.

Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has everyone guessing about elections. A13.

The New York Times said Shi'ite leaders had been approached about the idea. Shi'ites would be reluctant to see the minority shut out of power if that means more violence, like the twin suicide car bombs that rocked their holy cities a week ago.

Next month's vote would elect 275 legislators who would appoint a president and government and oversee the drafting of a new constitution over the next year.

White House spokesman Trent Duffy insisted that it is up to the Iraqis, not Washington, to decide the rules of the election.

''The United States supports the Iraqi election commission in defining those rules. But it's up to the Iraqi election commission to determine the rules," Duffy said.

In scattered violence yesterday in the north and west, a police colonel was assassinated in Baghdad, the latest of many. Local witnesses said a civilian was killed in two hours of fighting near Samarra between US forces and insurgents, and two civilians were killed in clashes in the town of Qaim.

Ansar al-Sunna, a group that said it carried out a suicide bomb attack on a US mess hall in Mosul last week that killed 22 people, released a videotape yesterday apparently showing the bombing and preparations for the attack.

Police in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf said they were making progress in catching those responsible for the bombing last week that killed 52 people. Along with a bomb that killed 14 in nearby Karbala, it was seen as an attempt to spark sectarian conflict in the run-up to the election.

Police chief Ghalib al-Jazairi said a man in detention had confessed to attending a guerrilla training camp in Syria. Iraq accuses Syrian intelligence of aiding former Hussein loyalists and Islamist groups in Iraq.