Bush determined to hold January elections in Iraq

President George Bush, on a day of new violence in the Middle East, expressed determination to see Iraq hold elections on January 30 and said they would show that terrorists cannot stop the march of democracy.

Meeting Ghazi al-Yawer, the interim Iraqi president, Bush said that a free society in Iraq “will be a major defeat for the terrorists”.

If terrorists were allowed to stop the election, it would “send a wrong signal to the world and send a wrong signal to the Iraqi people themselves”.

Al-Yawer – an influential leader in Sunni Muslim regions of Iraq where the fiercest battles against insurgents have been waged – wants Iraq’s January 30 election held on time, but other Sunni leaders want it to be postponed, saying the ongoing violence in these areas would keep people from voting.

“The attacks in Saudi Arabia remind us that the terrorists are still on the move,” Bush said. “They’re interested in affecting the will of free countries. They want us to leave Saudi Arabia. They want us to leave Iraq.

“They want us to grow timid and weary in the face of their willingness to kill randomly, kill innocent people,” Bush said. “That’s why these elections in Iraq are very important.”

The president said the United States would do everything it could to make the elections in Iraq as safe as possible. ”You can never guarantee 100% security,” he said.

Al-Yawer expressed resolve to defeat the insurgents. ”Right now we are faced with the armies of darkness,” the interim Iraqi president said. But he said that “victory is not only possible, it is a fact”.

The majority of Iraqi’s want to hold the January 30 elections, he said. “We in Iraq, the whole Iraqi society, are willing to participate in the elections,” he said. ”Nobody in Iraq wants to boycott elections except some politicians.”

Afterwards, he told reporters outside the White House that he believed it would take months, perhaps eight or so, for Iraq to build an effective security force, a move that would allow more American troops to return home.

Al-Yawer’s visit to the White House is seen as a way to persuade Iraq’s political minorities not to boycott the ballot.

The Sunnis, who represent just one-fifth of the Iraqi population, wielded the power under Saddam Hussein. They fear the election will give Shiite Muslims, with 60% of the population, an overpowering grip on the nation.

US and Iraqi officials worry that a Sunni boycott could undermine the legitimacy of a new government.

To bolster security ahead of the voting, the United States announced last week it was increasing its military force in Iraq to the highest level of the war, including the initial invasion in March 2003.

The 12,000-troop increase is to last only until March, but it says much about the strength and resiliency of the insurgency that US military planners failed to foresee when Baghdad was toppled in April 2003.

The 135 American troops who died supporting US-led operations in Iraq in November matches April of this year for the deadliest month since fighting began in March 2003.

Following his session with al-Yawer, Bush met with Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.