“This time, we have a real election, not just the sham elections we had under Saddam, and we Sunnis want to participate in the political process”

John Burns of the New York Times continues his first-rate reporting from Iraq.

On a day when the high voter turnout among Sunni Arabs was the main surprise, Ali and his posse of friends, unguarded as boys can be, acted like a chorus for the scene unfolding about them. A new willingness to distance themselves from the insurgency, an absence of hostility for Americans, a casual contempt for Saddam Hussein, a yearning for Sunnis to find a place for themselves in the post-Hussein Iraq – the boys’ themes were their parents’, too, only more boldly expressed.

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