Fear clouding election in Sunni areas

SAMARRA, Iraq -- Four months ago, insurgents operated with impunity in this ancient city along the Tigris, prompting US troops to storm it last October in a preview of the larger invasion of Fallujah in November.

Those bloody urban battles had to be fought, US officials said at the time, to allow key Sunni Muslim cities to safely take part in national elections that would persuade disaffected Sunnis to buy into a new Iraqi government instead of backing the insurgency.

But with the election now just three days away, the success of that strategy has been partial at best.

US commanders argue that denying the insurgents a haven has provided key intelligence and will in the long run dampen the attackers' effectiveness. But residents of Samarra and Fallujah say they still don't feel their cities are safe for democracy. Attacks on US and Iraqi security forces have increased in some Sunni regions since the invasions. Some residents resent the newly aggressive US presence and have no interest in voting; many others fear that if they vote they will be marked for death.

''We want to have elections. But we are afraid that anyone who votes will be killed," Taha Abdulrazak, 47, said this week in Samarra, watching as masked Interior Ministry commandos searched for bomb-making materials in the row of shops where he works.

Samarra was supposed to be the Sunni city that the United States could win over, perhaps a better model for other Iraqi trouble spots than the extreme case of Fallujah. Insurgents never had the iron grip here that they did in Fallujah; unlike in Fallujah, most civilians never fled; and the US retook the city without the widespread destruction of the Fallujah battle.

But in Samarra, the presence of US troops has prompted insurgents to launch car bombs and roadside bombings downtown, attacks that used to mainly hit US forces on the outskirts of the city. A car bomb struck two weeks after the US takeover in October, killing a 14-year-old boy, and there's been about one such attack every two weeks since, said Lieutenant Colonel Eric Schacht, whose Task Force 1-26, part of the Army's First Infantry Division, patrols Samarra.

It's increasingly the Iraqis, not Americans, who are bearing the brunt of the attacks, US military officials said. In the past month, 120 Iraqi security troops and civilians have been killed and 206 wounded in 82 attacks in the First Infantry Division's territory, an area the size of West Virginia containing Samarra, Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, and the restive town of Baqubah. The bulk of the violence occurred in and around Samarra.

Even those in the region who hoped the arrival of US troops would protect them from insurgents say the troops' presence is slowly increasing resentment.

''The situation here got better, but it's not ideal," Abdulrazak said. ''The soldiers aren't treating us as well as when they first got here. There is mutual fear between us."

Speaking French, Abdulrazak, a Sunni, was able to express an opinion he would have been afraid to share with others in the street: He wanted to vote for the Communist Party, but he was afraid to go to the polls and the party was afraid to campaign in Samarra for fear of retribution from Sunni religious extremists.

Even the US troops whose job is to guarantee election security aren't sure how many people will vote Sunday. ''Managing expectations" for voter turnout is a priority, and from the rank and file to the regional commander, Major General John R.S. Batiste, soldiers are stressing to Iraqis and to reporters that turnout is often anemic even in the United States.

''Every citizen in Samarra who wants to vote will have an opportunity," Schacht said. ''If they don't decide to, that's their choice."

Asked what he expected on Sunday, Sergeant Sam Taylor of Seattle said: ''Trouble. I don't know if anybody's going to vote, but I bet you the bad guys show up."

Batiste, in an interview last week, said he was confident that Iraqi security forces, backed by his troops, could hold off attacks on Election Day.

''I think the 30th of January is going to come and go," he said. ''It's not going to look much different from every other day."

But on a normal day, he added, there is a drumbeat of attacks. ''Today we had 22 attacks. Yesterday we had 35."

He predicted turnout in Sunni areas of 20 percent to 40 percent.

With polls suggesting that large majorities of Shi'ite Muslims and Kurds will vote, a turnout of 20 percent to 40 percent would leave Sunni Muslims even more underrepresented in the new legislature than they are in the country's population, opening the door for ethnic tensions to smolder.

Meanwhile, in Fallujah, barely 10,000 people have moved back to the city, out of a pre-invasion population of nearly 300,000, according to US officials. Tens of thousands returned briefly but decided not to stay; water, electricity, and sewage systems aren't functioning in many areas, many houses lie in rubble, and US troops still occasionally encounter insurgents hiding in abandoned buildings.

US Marines who patrol Fallujah said last week that there will be at least one polling station in the city and one nearby. Fallujah residents will be allowed to vote anywhere in their province, Anbar, but it's unclear how they will get to alternate sites because car travel will be banned in many areas across the province to prevent car bombs.

There will also be special centers for thousands of displaced Fallujah residents to vote in Baghdad, election officials have said.

Even for voters who are close to home, Fallujah, and its sister city, Ramadi, are plagued by some of the country's fiercest voter intimidation. Campaign posters have been ripped down and replaced with notices telling would-be voters, ''You've been warned."

Sa'ad Abdulaziz Arrawi said he resigned recently as head of Fallujah's election committee because insurgents threatened to kill his wife and children. ''They told me where my sons go to school and in which bank my wife works," he said. ''Having elections in this province is impossible."

Other residents said they wouldn't vote because they believe the elections are stacked against Sunnis, who wielded disproportionate power under Saddam Hussein and have provided the bulk of domestic support for insurgents.

Sheik Mehdi Ahmed Saleh, the leader of a large Fallujah clan, said in an interview in Saqlawiya, a nearby town, that he thought the winners had already been picked behind the scenes. ''The elections are like a play. The script is written, the director is ready, and the actors are chosen, and we are the spectators just watching it."

In Samarra, a planned 20 polling centers have been cut back to five because of concerns about being able to secure them all.

The city's entire election commission recently announced its resignation. Schacht said that provincial officials would find a way to staff the polling sites.

Captain Tarl Karoleski, public affairs officer for the 1-26 battalion responsible for Samarra, said officials considered tapping teachers and school administrators, a ready municipal labor pool, as election workers, but decided that put them at too much risk.

On top of such daunting challenges, voters in Samarra and Fallujah also face the same election quirks that other Iraqis face: Poll locations are being announced only at the last minute so that attackers won't have time to plan; many candidates' names are only being published this week for the first time, for the same reason; and voters have largely had to deliberate between parties without knowing who their candidates are.

Nevertheless, Khalid Qaraghuli, head of public relations for Anbar University in Fallujah, said he would vote.

''Even if the elections are not fair, we've got to participate because it's a stage we have to go through," he said. ''Let them hold the elections so we can see what happens next."

Anne Barnard can be reached at abarnard@globe.com. A Globe correspondent contributed to this report from Ramadi and Fallujah.