Election officials empty ballot boxes for counting at a polling station in Baghdad
Election officials empty ballot boxes for counting at a polling station in Baghdad December 15, 2005. Only scattered insurgent attacks marred Iraq's election on Thursday as disgruntled Sunni Arabs joined the vote, determined to have more say in government. The largely peaceful poll was a sharp contrast to Iraq's previous January 30 election for an interim assembly, when about 40 people died, many of them in nine quick-fire suicide bombings. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani