Iraqis Ignore U.S. Vote Amid Bloodshed

Iraqis traumatized by violence barely heeded the U.S. election on Wednesday as a suicide bomber attacked a U.S. checkpoint near Baghdad airport and U.S. aircraft carried out a heavy bombardment of rebel-held Falluja. After President Bush clinched victory over Democratic challenger John Kerry, one Iraqi in a Baghdad restaurant said it was time Washington altered course in Iraq. "We hope the American president will change his policy toward Iraq ... because Iraq is oppressed and can't remain occupied," Salem Shummari told Reuters Television. During vote-counting earlier, many Iraqis kept their television sets tuned to Ramadan religious programs. Bush's deadliest Islamist enemy Osama bin Laden said the U.S. president had dragged America into a quagmire in Iraq and warned for the first time of retaliation for Iraqi deaths. "Bush's hands are sullied with the blood of those on both sides just for oil and to employ his private companies," the al Qaeda leader said in a full Internet broadcast of a video aired in part by Arabic Al Jazeera television last week. "Remember that for every action, there is a reaction." Hungary and the Netherlands said they would withdraw their troops from a U.S.-led multinational force in Iraq by March. Bulgaria said it will cut its military presence by 10 percent. [more]