Iraqi elections set for Tuesday

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The victory rallies are set and the tributes are ready. In an Iraqi yes-or-no vote on re-electing Saddam Hussein, the only cliffhanger in Tuesday's vote is whether the two-decade Iraqi leader will beat his last showing: 99.96 percent.\nIn Iraq, where many believe war with the United States is coming, that 1995 result for Saddam is now seen as somewhat tepid.\n"This time, 100 percent!" worker Mayad Aiwan cried Sunday. "Because the Iraqi people love our leader!"\nBut as the ballot on which only Saddam's name appears suggests, it's not as if Saddam's people have much choice.\nShopkeepers hung banners on dreary storefronts Sunday, the new white sheets and cheerful red, green, blue and yellow lettering the only bright spots in a smoggy city choked by a decade of international isolation and sanctions on Saddam's regime.\n"Yes, yes, yes Saddam!" "Iraq will win, God save our leader!" the banners in Arabic proclaimed, in slogans repeated with modest variations on posters nationwide.\n"Yes, yes, yes Saddam! No, no, no USA!" declared one such sheet, in English, on a school wall on the road to a complex that Washington has targeted as an alleged nuclear site. \nIn what rights groups universally call one of the world's most oppressive regimes, it is difficult to determine how ordinary Iraqis truly view the ballot.\nOn Baghdad's streets, people voiced support for Saddam similar to that found on the slogans.\nAll were questioned Sunday in the presence of a government-appointed minder, officially required of all foreign press.\n"This vote will be the challenge of the Iraqi people to the United States," engineer Achmed Abdul Sahib said outside a city bus station. "More than last time. More than 99 percent"