28 September 2004	Tuesday	12 Shaban 1425

BAGHDAD: Excluding certain rebellious towns from Iraq's parliamentary elections might not seriously damage the credibility of the vote, but a broad boycott by Sunni Muslims is a potentially grave threat to the process , a senior US official said on Sunday.

"You could have a town or two that didn't participate" and it wouldn't be terrible, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "If it's whole communities, then that's where you have a serious political problem."

With voting planned for Jan. 31, Iraq's insurgency remains a serious problem. US Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said on Sunday violence was "getting worse and the reason is that (insurgents) are determined to disrupt the election."

In the next few months, Powell said, US troops would work to oust insurgents from Fallujah and other cities in the Sunni Muslim heartland and help the interim Iraqi government reassert control over those areas.

Fallujah has become a 'no-go' zone for US troops and international organizations such as the United Nations, which are supposed to help prepare for the elections.

"Our military commanders are gathering their resources and starting to put in place plans that will deal with these so- called no-go zones," Powell said on CNN's Late Edition. But the senior US official said the military campaign was less important than a political campaign to convince Sunni tribal, religious and political leaders not to abandon the voting.

"If what you have is an election with a whole ethnic area that isn't there?" he said. "Then that's a problem because then you have a parliament that Sunnis will not regard as legitimate."

Sunnis are a minority in Iraq but long enjoyed favoured status under Saddam Hussein, a Sunni. Failure to coax them to participate in the nation's new political process risks permanently alienating Sunnis, entrenching the insurgency and dooming attempts to form a cohesive Iraqi state.

In recent days, US and Iraqi officials have begun to acknowledge that some areas may be excluded from voting. US Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said on Thursday that elections that encompassed "three-fourths or four-fifths of the country" would be acceptable.

And on Sunday, Gen John Abizaid, head of US Central Command, told NBC's Meet the Press that he "can't predict 100 per cent that all areas will be available for complete, free, fair and peaceful elections."

Deputy Iraqi Prime Minister Barham Salih said it would be unfair to "hold the entire process hostage" to one rebellious region. "Any area that will hold out and create trouble, they risk being isolated and losing their voice," he told The Associated Press.

Fallujah, where US troops keep to the outskirts and launch regular missile strikes, is a prime candidate for exclusion. The US military on Sunday continued air strikes there, killing eight and wounding 17 according to local hospital officials. Meanwhile, a pair of car bombs exploded at an Iraqi National Guard base on the outskirts of Fallujah. Details on casualties were not available.

The Sunni minority has controlled Iraq's politics for decades. Now, US and Iraqi government officials must persuade Sunni leaders to participate in an election that seems guaranteed to formally end their dominance.

"The argument would be ... that they can protect themselves better by being in the game than out of the game," the senior US official said. "By being out of the game, you end up with an elected government that ain't you."

So far, results of the lobbying efforts have been mixed. The Muslim Scholars Association, a collection of influential Sunni clerics who oppose the US presence and the interim government, has announced plans to boycott the elections.

Lobbying has been complicated by the decentralized nature of the Sunni leadership. While the Shia Muslim community's strict religious hierarchy forms a natural rallying point for mass sentiment and identifiable negotiating partners, the Sunni leadership is spread among a constellation of political figures, clerics and tribal sheiks.

These leaders, the US official said, were reluctant to risk losing their credibility or becoming a target themselves by publicly embracing elections. Individual citizens are also likely to avoid the process out of similar fears.

"I think there are people in Fallujah that would like to vote, but I don't think they'd be willing to show up at a polling station right now assuming we can get one open," he said. -Dawn/The LAT-WP News Service (c) The Los Angeles Times.