Little Violence During Election Allows Iraqi Children to Play

BAGHDAD, Oct. 15 -- For the cooped-up children of bomb-weary Baghdad, yes vote or no, referendum day was a winner.

A security ban on all private vehicles, invoked to keep would-be bombers from reaching targets, had the benefit of turning Baghdad into a playground. For a day Saturday, after 2 ½ years of war, the boys and girls of Baghdad took back the streets.

"There are no cars, and we can play soccer," 15-year-old Jihad Tahrir said in the heavily Shiite Karrada district, out for the day with scores of friends.

By early morning, thousands of children spilled out into the city, bicycling and wobbling on rollerskates down thoroughfares deserted of cars.

In Sadr City, a Shiite district of 2 million people, a boy perched atop one of Baghdad's ubiquitous checkpoint blast walls, dangling his feet, beaming.

Another boy flopped up and down on one side of the road, trying and failing at a handstand. An older girl -- one of thousands her age in Baghdad who now spend their days indoors, unseen -- bounced a ball on the opposite side of the street, smiling.

"Do you want us to tell you something?" Tamara Majeed, 11, asked, interrupted by a visitor as she and her friends sketched out a chalk outline for tooki -- hopscotch -- in the middle of another potholed Sadr City road.

Answered with yes, the schoolgirls burst into song.

"Let your vote revolt,'' the girls sang, smiling, high voices pealing out a made-for-the-day anthem. "Don't let us down -- don't make me return to the Baathist grave.''

"Latifiya!'' Tamara and a growing ring of girls belted out, evoking the name of a Sunni Arab stronghold, since 2003 a bugaboo to scare children. "We won't ever be with the terrorists, because we are strong Shiites!"

"Latifiya! We will pass through Latifiya, because we are strong Shiites!"

"We learned it in school," Tamara said, song over.