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Thursday
Nov042004
Thursday, November 4, 2004 at 03:51PM
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]