President George W. Bush on Friday rejected warnings from a prominent adviser that elections in Iraq this month could precipitate a slide into civil war, insisting that the polls would lead to peace even if there were a low turnout among the minority Sunnis.
Mr Bush told reporters in the White House that it was not “constructive” to worry about the size of the turnout on January 30. He said 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces appeared “relatively calm”, an acknowledgment that Baghdad had joined three of the main Sunni provinces in lacking security because of the insurgency.
