Bush considers Iraq voting a success

WASHINGTON -- President Bush called Sunday's elections in Iraq a success and promised the United States will continue trying to prepare Iraqis to secure their own country.\n"The world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East," Bush told reporters at the White House on Sunday, four hours after the polls closed. He did not take questions after his three-minute statement.\nBush praised the bravery of Iraqis who turned out to vote despite continuing violence and intimidation. Bush said voters "firmly rejected the antidemocratic ideology" of terrorists.\nIraqis defied threats of violence and calls for a boycott to cast ballots in their first free election in a half-century Sunday.\nInsurgents struck polling stations with a string of suicide bombings and mortar volleys, killing at least 44 people, including nine suicide bombers.\n"Some Iraqis were killed while exercising their rights as citizens," Bush said. He also mourned the loss of American and British troops killed Sunday.\nBush cautioned that the election will not end violence in Iraq, but said U.S. forces will continue training and helping Iraqis "so this rising democracy can eventually take responsibility for its own security."\nIn a statement Sunday, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass, said Bush "must look beyond the election."\n"The best way to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that we have no long-term designs on their country is for the administration to withdraw some troops now" and negotiate further withdrawals, Kennedy added.\nEarlier Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iraq will now work to reduce ethnic or sectarian differences, and the United States will discuss the continued need for outside security forces with the newly elected Iraqi government.\n"We all recognize the Iraqis have a long road ahead of them," Rice said on CBS' "Face The Nation."\n"The insurgency is not going to go away as a result of today," Rice added.\nRice would not say whether U.S. forces will leave the country in great numbers after the vote, and Bush did not mention any U.S. military withdrawals.\nSo far, more than 1,400 U.S. troops and many thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives. The United States is spending more than $1 billion a week in Iraq.\nRice said the election went better than expected, but did not elaborate on U.S. predictions for turnout, violence or other measures.