I was surprised too at the elections outcome. Death toll of 44 on election day
http://www.freep.com/news/nw/iraq-bar131e_20050131.htm which really surprised me and totally blew away my predictions of tragedy I'm sure some of you had read on other threads. It
is a historical day for the Iraqi people...but it would have been regardless of casualities. I'm sure the Bush administration finally let out collective sigh they've been holding in since March 2003, "Even though my war rhetoric was completely fabricated and my own countrie's economy is in shambles...I forced democracy on the same people me and my daddy have been blowing up for a decade."
'Grats Dubya, you got your PR shoot, now if you would listen to history you'd realize that people forced into democracy over night often revert to a dictatorship in the same amount of time.