Shiite Alliance Wins Iraq Election
Officials: United Iraqi Alliance Takes 128 Seats; Sunnis Make Gains
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Play CBS Video Video Bush On Saddam's Victims CBS News RAW: President Bush met with several victims who say they were tortured or abused during Saddam Hussein's reign. Bush also spoke about progress made since the Iraqi dictator's fall.
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Local Iraqis watch election official Safwat Rasheed read the Dec. 15 parliamentary election results on television in a pool hall, Friday, Jan. 20, 2006, in Baqouba, Iraq. (AP)
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A young man stops behind police lines that read, "danger bomb material," to view the wreckage of a bomb attack on a passing Iraqi police patrol, Friday, Jan. 20, 2006, in Baghdad, Iraq. (AP)
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An Iraqi police vehicle is seen sprayed with shrapnel after an attack by a roadside bomb, Friday, Jan. 20, 2006, in Baghdad, Iraq. (AP)
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Iraqi police investigate at the scene of a roadside attack on an Iraqi police patrol, Friday, Jan. 20, 2006, in Baghdad, Iraq. (AP)
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Smoke rises after an explosion near the Al-Tahreer Square, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2006, in downtown Baghdad, Iraq. (AP)
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Safwat Rasheed, an election official, announced that the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance captured 128 of the 275 seats in the Dec. 15 election, down from the 146 it won in the January 2005 balloting.
A Sunni ticket, the Iraqi Accordance Front, won 44 seats. Another Sunni coalition headed by Saleh al-Mutlaq finished with 11 seats, Rasheed said. A few other Sunnis won seats on other tickets.
That will give the Sunni Arabs a bigger voice in the legislature than they had in the outgoing assembly, which included only 17 from the community which forms the backbone of the insurgency. Many Sunnis had boycotted the January vote.
Kurds saw their seat total reduced. An alliance of the two major Kurdish parties won 53 seats, down from the 75 they took in the Jan. 2005 election.
A rival Kurdish ticket, the Kurdish Islamic Group, won five seats, a gain of three from the outgoing parliament.
A ticket headed by secular Shiite former prime minister Ayad Allawi won 25 seats, down from 40 in the outgoing assembly.
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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