Kerry Visits Iraq for 'Firsthand' View; Car Bombs Kill 15

BAGHDAD, Jan. 5 -- Sen. John F. Kerry arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday for a two-day assessment of the war, the central issue in his unsuccessful presidential campaign.

Kerry (D-Mass.) met privately with U.S. diplomats, intelligence officials and military commanders, senior members of the interim government and Sunni and Shiite Muslim political figures. He scheduled no public events or news conferences and said during a lunch with a small group of reporters in the fortified Green Zone that he had come to Iraq to ask questions, not answer them.

"I've been visiting a lot of places like Des Moines and Green Bay, and it has been great. But we are at war, and I think you can't really make all the judgments that you need to make without digging in," he said. "The Coalition Provisional Authority made some horrendous judgments and complicated our presence here tremendously.

"Now it's a different time and different set of judgments that need to be made. I need to understand it, so I can make the judgments. That's why I'm here, to see and hear firsthand what the dynamics are."

Meanwhile, in the city of Hilla, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, rescue workers scrambled to the scene of a suicide car bombing at a police academy graduation ceremony. The bomb, detonated at the academy's main entrance, killed 10 officers and injured 44 people, most of them officers, according to military officials.

A few hours later, a car bomb detonated at a police checkpoint near Baqubah, about 35 miles northeast of the capital, killing five officers and wounding eight, the military said.

The car bombings were only the most spectacular in a rising wave of insurgent attacks in advance of nationwide elections set for Jan. 30. Despite the violence, U.S. and Iraqi officials have remained adamant that the vote will go forward, both because the transitional law requires it by the end of January and because a delay might be seen as a victory for the insurgents.

Kerry echoed that sentiment, saying that the "elections will happen. It's something that has to happen."

In a series of interviews and at a news conference Wednesday, the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, appealed to Iraqis to vote, despite threatened attacks on polling stations.

"The government and I personally encourage all Iraqis to participate in this democratic process," Allawi said. "It is a very important subject, and we are holding communications and talks with all sections of the Iraqi society in order to encourage them to take part in the elections. . . . Not taking part in this process is an incorrect practice and will cause damage to the Iraqi society."

Insurgents have continued to target locations and people associated with the voting, as well as the interim government organizing it.

On Tuesday night in Jalawla, 60 miles east of Baqubah, four armed men kidnapped a local elections official from his home, said Amer Abdullateef, who heads the elections office for Diyala province. Also, a police colonel and his driver were killed by unknown assailants in Wajihia, also east of Baqubah, according to Ahmad Foad of Baqubah General Hospital.

In Baiji, an insurgent hotbed in north-central Iraq, the entire city council resigned Wednesday, joining the electoral commission that had stepped down earlier, said Saad Nazzal, the mayor. The city was tense, and residents said they expected more violence.

"After midnight, three armed men with covered faces came to my house and threatened me," said Lt. Col. Jamal Mohsin of the Baiji police department. "They told us all not to go to the elections and not to vote, and also not to guard or give security protection to the election centers, otherwise you will be killed."

Election planners are concerned that voter turnout will be low in the region north and west of Baghdad known as the Sunni Triangle and in other areas where the insurgency has remained strong. The Shiite majority and ethnic Kurds, however, are expected to vote in large numbers in anticipation of gaining political power denied to them for decades by Sunni leaders loyal to Saddam Hussein.

As many as a million Iraqis living outside the country might also vote, according to Peter Erben, an official for the International Organization for Migration, a Geneva-based group charged with overseeing the expatriate vote. In Iraq, there are an estimated 14 million to 15 million eligible voters.

In the United States, where 230,000 Iraqis are thought to live, polling stations will be set up in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Nashville and Washington, Erben said.

"No one can be sure how many Iraqis there are anywhere," Erben said at a news conference. "When we start registration from January 17, we will get a better idea."

Special correspondents Salih Saif Aldin in Baiji, Hassan Shammari in Baqubah and Bassam Sebti contributed to this report.