October 16, 2002	Wednesday	Sha’aban 9, 1423

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BAGHDAD, Oct 15: Iraqis voted massively on Tuesday, some with their blood, in a referendum which ushers in seven more years of President Saddam Hussein’s rule and keeps Baghdad on a collision course with the United States.

“Turnout was absolute and the yes vote was absolute,” the government’s number two, Ezzat Ibrahim, said.

“The people are voting unanimously for their leader,” he told state television as the 1,905 voting centres closed around the country.

Ibrahim, head of the committee supervising the referendum, said the poll was “a unique experience in the world which foreigners cannot explain”.

Non-Iraqis “cannot understand how a people, all of them, can vote unanimously for their leader”, said Ibrahim, vice chairman of the Revolution Command Council.

In Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer dismissed the presidential referendum.

“Not a very serious vote,” Fleischer said.

“No one places any credibility on it.”—AFP