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CNN Sunday Morning

Iraqi Officials Announce Election Results

Aired February 13, 2005 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BETTY NYUGEN, CNN ANCHOR: Two weeks ago, they voted for the first time in 50 years. Now today, the outcome, as the people in Iraq see democracy in action.
Good morning, everybody. From the CNN Center here in Atlanta, this is CNN SUNDAY MORNING. It's February 13th. I'm Betty Nguyen.

TONY HARRIS: And I'm Tony Harris. 7:00 a.m. here in the East and 3:00 p.m. in Baghdad. Thank you for being with us.

Now in the news, we'll have to wait at least another hour, maybe longer, to learn who won last month's elections in Iraq. The results will not be certified for three days, but the unofficial election returns are to be made public around 8:00 a.m. Eastern time. CNN will carry that announcement live from Baghdad.

Israel's cabinet has approved the list of 500 Palestinian prisoners to be released as a goodwill gesture. The list includes only prisoners who have served at least two-thirds of their sentences, and does not include any accused of killing Israelis. The releases begin in the next two days.

Pope John Paul II appeared at his apartment window overlooking St. Peters Square this morning. He delivered his weekly blessing right on schedule. The 84-year old pope was released from a Rome hospital on Thursday following nine days of treatment for a throat infection.

North Korea is coming under pressure from its closest ally. China's foreign minister tells Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice his country will push for more six party talks as soon as possible on North Korea's nuclear program. The North Koreans announced last week that they are pulling out of those talks.

NGUYEN: Well coming up this hour, an evil plot on the day for love? Well, police say this man planned to give dozens of special gifts for Valentine's Day. That gift was a mass suicide party.

So was it real or just a prank? We'll find out. And the leader of North Korea held a top spot on the list of world's worst dictators. So why was he bumped from number one? And who took his place?

Also, a mess o' plenty in bountiful Utah. It started with a two car crash, but ended in a multi car pile-up. We'll tell you what happened on this crash course. But first, our top story this morning, the vote count from the January 30th Iraqi election will be announced this morning around 8:00 Eastern time. Now our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson covering the election. And he is live in Baghdad.

Nic, is the excitement building there this morning?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Betty, I think there's certainly a lot of expectation. But really, the thunder of the results has been stolen already. The preliminary results have pretty much shown, as expected, that the main religious Shia party has really come out ahead of the others.

Certainly that's what their politicians have been saying over the last week or so. And what that really means is that they're going to get the top jobs in this new 275 member national assembly.

And of course, if the religious parties do well, that means the constitution that the assembly will be drawing up in the coming months, will also have a religious flavor.

The main party backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, very strong in the south, strong it seems in Baghdad. It's likely that the Kurdish Alliance parties from the north will do well, but the overall tenor, if you will, of what's going to come out of these elections and the constitution that gets drawn up afterwards from this new political makeup will have a much bigger religious flavor than it's had in the past 30.

NGUYEN: Nic, what about the Sunni vote and how they will be represented in this new government?

ROBERTSON: Well, they are being invited to draft -- help draft the constitution by some of the religious parties here. We've heard that already that in some Sunni provinces, the vote turnout was only -- was less than 10 percent of the potential electorate.

So in some areas, a low turnout, meaning that they're perhaps won't be as many Sunni politicians representing the Sunni community, as there will be Shias and Kurds, what the Shia community say they want to do, and their leading politicians say they want to include the Sunni politicians.

But there are two risks here that you get disenfranchisement of the Sunni community. Or they say, look, we made a mistake and we need to get involved in electoral process.

And in many ways, that's sort of the big political gamble that's going on at the moment, Betty.

NGUYEN: All right, CNN's Nic Robertson in Baghdad. We'll be checking back with you this morning. Thank you, Nic.

With all the votes now counted in Iraq, here's what happens next. Election results will be certified in three days if voting or counting complaints are not upheld. A 275 member national assembly will be formed, based on the share of the vote each candidate gets. That national assembly will pick a president and two deputies.

Those three people will then choose a prime minister and a cabinet. The prime minister and cabinet will ask the national assembly for a vote of confidence. The national assembly will draft a constitution by August 15th. And the Iraqi people will vote on that constitution by October 15th. And if they approve it, a general election will be held by December 15th and a new government will take office by the end of the year.

HARRIS: So a lot to do. Well, the uncertified election results will be released for maybe another hour or so. Our guest this morning has an optimistic view of the situation in Iraq and the Bush administration's policy there.

Barbara Ferguson is Washington bureau chief for the Arab News, an English daily newspaper based in Saudi Arabia.

Barbara, are you there? Good morning.

BARBARA FERGUSON, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF FOR ARAB NEWS: I am. And a bleary-eyed good morning to you, Tony.

HARRIS: Well, I got to ask you first question at the top, as you look at these uncertified results, we keep saying that because the results will be certified in the next three days. So they're still kind of unofficial, official results, as you look at this, the grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, is he the most powerful man in Iraq today, the de facto president, the de facto whatever, the chief architect of this coming constitution?

FERGUSON: I hear he's already being referred to as the Sistani Tsunami.

HARRIS: So that means he is in fact the man right now?

FERGUSON: Absolutely. He and his coalition are the -- you know, they are in power. And things are going to change as a result of this historic election.

HARRIS: OK, so let's get into that. How should folks at home feel about this? Is this a good development that Sistani will essentially be calling the shots? Is it something that we should be concerned about?

FERGUSON: Right. Very good point. Well, you know, Sistani is Iranian. And I think many people are concerned about that. But what I think it is important to remember is that number one, Sistani has said from the very beginning, he does not want to recreate an Iranian type government.

HARRIS: With the mullahs and -- yes.

FERGUSON: Right. Absolutely. And you know, secondly, I think that he realizes, for example, it's important to know that right now, violence is increasing in Iraq.

HARRIS: Yes.

FERGUSON: And a lot of the insurgents are targeting the Shia because they want to lure them into a civil war. So Sistani and his men are sitting cool right now. They do want to form this government.

HARRIS: OK, now this -- these results are about percentages. And percentages turn into seats, correct?

FERGUSON: Correct.

HARRIS: OK.

FERGUSON: Two-hundred and seventy-five.

HARRIS: So will there be fights over percentages if you're a part of a group that doesn't like the percentage, doesn't like the outcome, do you anticipate fighting over these numbers?

FERGUSON: Yes. The Kurds are all -- who have come in second, they are already saying they want to have the seat of either president of prime minister.

HARRIS: Yes.

FERGUSON: So yes, the squabbling has begun.

HARRIS: The United Iraqi Alliance, this is the religious Shiite group, correct?

FERGUSON: Correct.

HARRIS: They are absolutely flat out going to dominate this new assembly. And what does that mean?

FERGUSON: Well, as I said, we have to be very careful that number one, they bring everyone into the coalition, that the Sunnis who have as you know who have ruled the country for decades and are now the minorities in their own country...

HARRIS: Yes.

FERGUSON: ...that they need to feel as though they're going to be able to participate in this new coalition, that they're going to be able to help write the constitution, and that they're going to be fairly represented.

I am concerned with the amount of violence that's taking place. I'm concerned with the fact that they're targeting civilians. You know, the explosion yesterday in the bakery, things like this, are very distracting...

HARRIS: Yes.

FERGUSON: ...when it comes to forming a new government.

HARRIS: One more quick one, Barbara. What do you see the evolving role of the coalition in all of this? Will, for example, the coalition have a hand in picking the next president?

FERGUSON: You mean the U.S. backed coalition?

HARRIS: Yes.

FERGUSON: Yes. Well, don't forget, we're withdrawing troops already. 15,000 are on their way home. So this is really dicey, because if it looks as though the Americans are involved with this, if it looks as though in any way they are manipulating the outcome of this election, I think that this will lead to big trouble on the ground.

HARRIS: Barbara Ferguson, good to see you. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us. It's early this morning.

FERGUSON: Thanks, Tony.

HARRIS: Thank you. OK...

FERGUSON: Bye now.

HARRIS: ...and we will carry the announcement of Iraq's final uncertified election results live next hour on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

And here's our e-mail question this morning. What's the best case scenario for Iraq? Tell us what you think. We are at wam@cnn.com. And we'll read your replies throughout the morning.

NGUYEN: Firefighters in Spain are still trying to control a blaze at a downtown Madrid skyscraper this morning. That raging fire broke out last night and is still burning, sparking fears that the 32 story building could collapse.

Now the flames already gutted the upper part of the office building. Three firefighters suffered smoke inhalation, but there are no reports of any other injuries. And officials don't believe the blaze was set on purpose. Firefighters think a short circuit may be to blame.

HARRIS: Police in Oregon are stepping up their investigation of an alleged Internet suicide pact that was to have been carried out tomorrow on Valentine's Day. And while one disturbing element remains unresolved, other aspects are coming into focus.

CNN's Kimberly Osias explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OSIAS: Mr. Krein, what do you have to say for yourself?

(voice-over): Gerald Krein walked shackled from a jail cell to a police questioning room. The 26-year old charged with solicitation to commit murder after allegedly setting up a suicide pact on the Internet with at least 32 people, spanning several states and countries as well. WESLEY GRABOWSKI, NEIGHBOR: I was shocked. At first, when I saw the police show up, I pretty much figured it was a drug bust. And then to my surprise, I found out what it really was.

OSIAS: The alleged plot was exposed earlier this week when a Canadian woman who went by the screen name "hapieluv" got cold feet and alerted authorities.

Today, three other women came forward, revealing more information about the group called SuicideParty2005, which communicated on a chatroom that went by that name.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From the very beginning. You know, have you ever thought about it? Do you want to join a suicide party? And that was like the third thing he asked me.

OSIAS: Saturday, authorities noticed a significant theme. Krein targeted women and alluded to sex as well. Krein is behind bars, but authorities worry about another group member who claimed to be a mother, planning to kill her two young children and then herself.

TIM EVINGER, SHERIFF, KLAMATH COUNTY, OREGON: As far as the children go, it's still a worldwide search at this point that we're still examining information.

OSIAS: But police concede they can't be sure whether any of the members, including Krein himself, planned to commit suicide or whether some were playing a prank.

However, police said the women who came forward gave consistent accounts of how the suicides were to be carried out, saying members were going to hang themselves from high ceilings.

Wednesday, authorities seized Krein's computer hard drive and DVDs from his family's home.

ED CALEB, KLAMATH COUNTY DISTRICT ATTY: He may have attempted to download his computer or erase a bunch of stuff that's on there.

OSIAS: Prosecutors said they expect to seek second degree attempted manslaughter charges before a grand jury on Monday.

Kimberly Osias, CNN, Klamath County, Oregon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: Well, too much power, it can be dangerous. And some of the world's most powerful leaders are the living proof of that. We will tell you who made the list of the absolute worst. That's a little bit later this hour.

HARRIS: And check out these pictures. A commute gone bad in Utah. Mangled, overturned cars, injured drivers, what a mess. We'll have details next.

(WEATHER REPORT) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: And a check of stories across American now. The world's largest discount retailer will pay more than $135,000 to settle federal charges that it broke child labor laws. The government says Wal-mart illegally used teenage workers to operate hazardous equipment like chain saws and fork lifts.

In some of its stores, the company denies the allegations. They're parting like it's 1980 in Lake Placid, New York. The city is celebrating the U.S. Olympic hockey team that won a gold medal 25 years ago, pulling off a miracle on ice. Do you believe in miracles? Remember that call from Al Michaels against a once unbeatable Russian team. Many members of the 1980 Olympic team will return to Lake Placid for a two week celebration.

And an old disco song by Grace Jones says pull up to the bumper, Betty, but don't sing it in bountiful Utah. The city is still trying to recover after a 13 car pile-up that shut down interstate 15 in both directions for almost six hours yesterday. And many motorists rammed and rear ended. Officials say the chain reaction crash started when two cars collided in foggy weather.

And guys, she is off the market. We'll tell you who put a rock on Christina Aguilera's finger later this hour. It's what a girl wants.

NGUYEN: Time now to check in on what is happening in other parts of the world today.

HARRIS: And for that, let's go to Anand Naidoo at the International Desk.

Anand, good morning.

ANAND NAIDOO, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, a very good morning from me. Iraq's, of course, the main news, but there's been one other big development coming out of the Middle East. The Israeli government says it will release 500 Palestinian prisoners over the next several days. Those approved for release have each served two- thirds of their sentences. And none are accused of killing Israelis.

It's not quite a done deal yet, but the names will be posted on a Web site so anyone can file an objection. That announcement part of last week's Sharm el-Sheikh cease-fire agreement.

In Pakistan, a major relief underway for tens of thousands of people hit by storms, heavy rains, and avalanches. At least 424 deaths are being blamed on the severe weather. Most died when three dams burst in the southwestern part of the country. Hundreds are still missing. Officials say between 25 and 30,000 people are affected by the disaster.

Schools were also killed in avalanches in the Pakistani held part of Kashmir. The country is deploying troops to help with rescue efforts. Disaster of a different kind in the Spanish capitol in Madrid, one of the city's landmark office towns is destroyed in a fire overnight. We received these pictures early this morning. Plumes of smoke were still rising out of the structure. At least six of the upper floors collapsed. The building was believed to be empty. Authorities say there's no reason, repeat no reason, to believe the fire and in the center was an act of terrorism.

Incidentally, that part of Madrid, the capitol of Spain there, is known as little Manhattan.

That's all for me. Back with more later.

HARRIS: OK, thank you.

NGUYEN: Looking forward to that.

HARRIS: Well, they've been busy tallying the ballots. Now the results are in. We're expecting vote counts for Iraq's historic election. About 40 minutes and don't forget our e-mail question. Tell us what's the best case scenario for Iraq. We're at wam@cnn.com. Plus the gates are open. All 7500 of them. We'll show you the big apple's biggest work of art straight ahead on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Take a look at this. This is a big wide shot for you. See, the orange there. They are simply called the Gate. There's a close-up. And they're open for your viewing. Live pictures from New York City this morning.

The orange exercise in art in Manhattan's Central Park, includes 7500 gates.

HARRIS: Wow.

NGUYEN: That was 23 miles, uses over a million square feet of nylon fabric, and took about 600 workers to install. It is the biggest artwork in city history.

HARRIS: Well, you know, I want to say that that's orange. The drapes are orange, but I understand that artistically, I need to say it's saffron.

NGUYEN: Saffron, yes.

HARRIS: It's saffron.

NGUYEN: Saffron.

HARRIS: You know, a great day yesterday weather-wise for the unveiling of the Gates. And it looks like, Orelon, it's going to be pretty nice day today, at least a good start.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HARRIS: Well, here's some news this morning.

NGUYEN: Are you upset about this news?

HARRIS: Well, I -- well no, no, no, no. I want her happy. I love the music. I want her happy. Guys, she's spoken for, it seems. Christina Aguilera gets a step closer to tying the knot. We'll tell you who's ring she is sporting.

NGUYEN: And ruling with an iron hand. That is getting some current leaders a dubious distinction. We will dictate those details straight ahead, right here on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: We're less than an hour now before the final uncertified results of the Iraqi elections are expected to be made public. And welcome back, everyone, to CNN SUNDAY MORNING. I'm Tony Harris.

NGUYEN: And I'm Betty Nguyen. We'll have that story in just a moment. But first, here's a look at these headlines today.

As mentioned, in just about 30 minutes from now, election officials in Iraq are expected to announce the results of that country's historic nationwide elections just two weeks ago. The results will not be certified, however. Political parties have three days to file formal challenges.

Now no major surprises are expected. The Shiites are expected to retain majority power while the rest of Sunni Arab minority will likely be marginalized.

In Madrid, Spain, terrorism is not suspected in what is being called the worst fire in the city's history. Look at this video. Flames engulf this 32-story landmark building in the city's financial district. Firefighters were able to contain that blaze from spreading, which is good news. And electrical short is suspected of causing that blaze.

Well, just about 90 minutes ago, Pope John Paul II made his first public appearance since being released from the hospital. The frail 84-year old pontiff led this morning's weekly prayer. And he was released from the hospital, as you remember, on Thursday, nine days after being rushed there with breathing problems.

Iran says it will not shut down its nuclear research program, but maintains the project will be peaceful. Iran says -- has also warned that the U.S. attacking against those facility -- it's warning against those attacks. Washington, which accused Tehran of pursuing nuclear weapons, has not ruled out any measure, including use of force.

We are keeping you informed. CNN, the most trusted name in news.

HARRIS: It is the big question in Iraq this morning. Who did they vote for? Jane Arraf reports from Tikrit. And Jane, I've got to tell you, much of the thunder has been stolen from this day by the release of the preliminary results, but it still feels like a big deal today.

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's -- absolutely. It's been a huge day.

Now again, we have to emphasize that these are results that can be contested for the next three days. So while no surprise, it appears that the Shia are back, which is actually a list backed by the Ayatollah Ali Sistani, perhaps the most revered figure in Iraq, a Shia cleric.

There will be a lot of power sharing going on. The current will have made major gains. The Sunnis appear to have been to some extent shut out.

And here in Tikrit in Saddam's hometown, where we are, there were not a huge number of people who went out to vote, Tony. Preliminary results indicate perhaps 30 percent of registered voters came out here -- Tony?

HARRIS: Jane, put a fine point on this, finer than maybe we've known to this point. To what extent was the U.S. military involved in these elections?

ARRAF: Well, this was supposed to be (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the Iraqi election. And the Iraqi officials went to great pains to say the military would not be involved in any way. They wouldn't touch the ballot boxes. They wouldn't be anywhere near the polling stations.

But in fact, in places like this, and some of them are in remote communities, there really wasn't anyone else to do a lot of the organizing, a lot of the preparation work.

And the military found themselves doing a lot of that. Now cases of ballot boxes -- being short of ballot boxes, where they were being sealed in grain shacks for instance. There was a lot of improvisation going on.

Remarkable that it happened at all. And according to many Iraqis, remarkable that it happened with so little violence relatively -- Tony?

HARRIS: Yes, Jane. I mean, I guess there just could have been expected the first free elections years now. Jane Arraf reporting from Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit this morning. Thank you, Jane.

NGUYEN: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Since that was first said more than a century ago, it has been proven time and time again. In fact, today, many of us will open our newspapers this morning to find a list of the worst dictators now in power.

And according to that list, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan is the worst of the worst. He's followed by Kim Jong Il of North Korea, Than Shwe of Burma, the country now known as Myanmar, and Hu Jintao of China, along with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

The cases for each can be found in today's "Parade" magazine. And its contributing editor David Wallechinsky joins us now from Los Angeles with much more on this list.

Good morning to you.

DAVID WALLECHINSKY, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, PARADE: Good morning.

NGUYEN: Well, first of all, tell us what criteria you used to create this list of yours?

WALLECHINSKY: The basics of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the ability to choose your own leaders. And then, I kind of used as a tie breaker if a citizen of a country stood on the street corner and told somebody they thought the leader was not doing right, what would happen to that person?

NGUYEN: I see. All right, so Sudan's leader has really bumped Kim Jong Il of North Korea out of that top spot. What is that?

WALLECHINSKY: Well, because he's been killing people in Darfur. We read a lot about, and see a lot on television, about the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. 70,000 people dead. Two billion uprooted.

And we tend to forget that there's somebody behind these actions. And that is Omar al-Bashir, who's already done the same thing in the south of Sudan.

NGUYEN: I see. All right, if we can put that list back up just for a moment. I want to focus on the -- look at that list one more time, because number three on that list is a name that some people may not be too familiar with. And you say that is because the case in that country, which is now named Myanmar, used to be Burma, is something that's been under reported, correct?

WALLECHINSKY: Yes, exactly. I mean, Burma really doesn't have any resources that we need. It doesn't have an interesting location. And so we tend to forget about Burma.

But they have one-quarter of all child soldiers in the world are in Burma. And the Burmese government, in an attempt to clean out various ethnic groups, has destroyed almost 3,000 villages.

NGUYEN: You know, I was surprised to see Crown Prince Abdullah number five on your list. Isn't Saudi Arabia a good ally or at least an ally for the U.S. in the war on terror?

WALLECHINSKY: That may be the case. Of course, 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis.

But even if they are an ally in terror, that doesn't mean that it isn't a dictatorial government. You may have noticed a few days ago that there was an election, municipal elections. First elections in the country in 40 years. In reality, of course, women weren't allowed to vote. Second, these elections were only for half the seats in the municipal councils. The other half are appointed by the royal family of Saudi Arabia, who will also point the mayors of each city, which means that the elections meant nothing.

NGUYEN: Now you bumped up Gadhafi on this list. Last year, he wasn't even a top 10. Why did you bump him up?

WALLECHINSKY: Well, you know, he's made his peace with the West. And you know, we want his oil. And so, you know, he's OK now by the west. But because he made his peace with the west, and the west is no longer hassling him, he was able to crack down even harder on his own people.

For example, he has what's known as "collective guilt." If he doesn't like something that somebody's done, he can punish the entire family or even an entire village or town.

NGUYEN: I see. And something else that surprised me about your list. Fidel Castro. Not even in the top 10?

WALLECHINSKY: Yes, he slipped down to number 12. Not by -- and not by any improvement by any means. He didn't do anything right or didn't get any better. It's just that others got worse.

NGUYEN: I see. All right, very interesting list. David Wallechinsky, contributing editor of "Parade," we thank you for your insight today.

WALLECHINSKY: Thank you.

HARRIS: Well, practice makes perfect, especially when it comes to performing for the Grammys. Nominees like John Mayor are tuning up and checking their mikes. A preview of one of music's biggest nights from CNN.com straight ahead on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

NGUYEN: And good morning, Boston. Boy, look at that sun out there. Orelon Sydney has the forecast for you and the rest of the nation. That's in about 20 minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: And time now to fast forward for a quick look at some of the stories we'll be following this week. Beginning Wednesday, dozens of scientists. Doctors and patients will weigh in on a broad scale review of a particular class of painkillers.

The drugs known as Cox II inhibitors have come under intense scrutiny for possibly causing heart attacks. The Food and Drug Administration will hold three days of meetings on whether they should remain on the market.

And Thursday, Iraq will close its borders to prevent Shiite pilgrims from entering the country. The government says it's the latest attempt to stop insurgent attacks. And next Saturday, former Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush will visit the country's hit by the tsunami in December. Both have been tapped to lead a U.S. fund-raising drive to help tsunami victims.

NGUYEN: All right, Grammy gold is at stake tonight for the 47th Annual Grammy Awards. Christina Park is here from the cnn.com desk to tell us about music's highest honor.

And I guess, Christina, if you haven't heard of Kanye West...

CHRISTINA PARK, CNN.COM: Oh, yes.

NGUYEN: ...you will tonight.

PARK: He's leading the nominees with 10 nominations. And he also faces artists like Usher, Alicia Keys are up with...

NGUYEN: Competition.

PARK: Yes, eight nominations each. And we've got the scoop on who might have the Midas touch this year. At cnn.com, you can hit a gold mine of behind the music news.

For instance, did you know that Usher's song "Yeah" started out as a "No." It's up for three Grammys, including record of the year. But the world may have never heard the hit featuring Ludacris and Little John because some didn't believe the collaboration would work. Thanks to the songwriter who never gave up, the record blew up the charts. And as you know, it's up for music's highest honors.

You'll find more music hits and misses on cnn.com. All you have to do is click through our gallery to see which of your favorite artists made the cut. Music buffs can also click through our list of past winners, browse the list of nominees up for best record album, song, new artist, pop vocal rap, even country awards from groups like Maroon 5 to the late Ray Charles, cnn.com is your date to the 47th Annual Grammys.

Are you watching?

NGUYEN: I will be watching. And J. Lo and her husband, although we can't tell anybody that's her husband, will be performing together tonight?

PARK: I believe so.

NGUYEN: All right.

PARK: I'll be watching for Kanye West.

NGUYEN: Yes, he's probably going to...

PARK: He's the man to watch.

NGUYEN: ...quite a few awards. All right. Speaking of entertainment news, Grammy winners, what this girl wants is apparently a husband. We are talking about Christina Aguilera. She is reportedly engaged to boyfriend of two years music executive Jordan Bradman. Representatives for the couple say Bradman popped the question to the pop singer last night. We don't know exactly how, but he did put a big rock on the rock star's finger. No plans on where and when just yet.

HARRIS: And checking our top stories in about 15 minutes. Iraq is due to announce the uncertified results from last month's election. After three days, the election results will be certified as long as no objections about the count are upheld.

Pope John Paul II was back at his apartment window today delivering his weekly blessing. The event -- his followers for their prayers while he was hospitalized with breathing problems.

A massive fire devours a 32-story skyscraper in Madrid's financial district. The blaze burned all night. And firefighters fear the building will collapse. Authorities don't believe anyone was inside. Three firefighters have suffered smoke inhalation. There is no cause yet.

The Iraqi election commission is expected to announce final uncertified results from last month's elections in the next hour. We'll carry it live from the Baghdad Convention Center on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

But up next, his bravery earned him a bronze star and nearly cost him his life. Another chapter in our hero series ahead on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

NGUYEN: And here's a CNN extra. AirTran Airways this week became the first commercial airline in the world to offer complimentary XM satellite radio service on its flights. The service provides more than 100 channels and free music sports news and entertainment. And of course, you don't need to be airborne to listen to XM. The company has exclusive deals with GM and Honda.

Now its competitor, Sirius Satellite Radio, is installing its services in Ford and Daimler Chrysler vehicles.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Soul man. Soul man this morning. Now we're starting to get it. Now we're starting to understand the music in the program.

Good morning, Boston. Some NBA action going down at the Fleet Center today, as the Celtics face off against the Sacramento Kings. Your weather forecast with Orelon Sydney in about seven minutes.

NGUYEN: Nice beat on a Sunday. Get your right into the day. All right, in our heroes segment this morning, we pay tribute to Sergeant Bruce Himelright. He's been awarded a bronze star for bravery in an ambush in Iraq that nearly cost him his life.

CNN's Casey Wian has his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the National Guard armory in Chico, California, Sergeant Bruce Himelright is working off the last six months of his military career. He joined the Navy seven years ago doing active duty on a nuclear sub. After he left, life as a security guard wasn't enough, so he joined the army National Guard, a move that took him to Iraq and army honors for bravery.

SGT. BRUCE HIMELRIGHT, CALIFORNIA NATIONAL GUARD: To me it's just a soldier who is in a position where you want to survive and you want your friends survive and what else are you going to do?

WIAN: The day began like any other until a routine patrol turned deadly. Shots rang out. Himelright could feel he had been hit.

HIMELRIGHT: Once I realized I was being shot, I was able to stand up and there was an Iraqi interpreter right beside me, I was able to grab him with both arms and we jumped into a canal. Two seconds passed and I was in the bottom of the canal face-down. And I had my .16 in my hand and I looked down and I had blood all over the left side of my body. When I rolled over there was a silhouette on top of the canal and then they started shooting me in the chest as well.

WIAN: As the bullets flew Sergeant Himelright worried about his fellow soldiers.

HIMELRIGHT: I was able to actually stand up, because I only had one shot through my buttocks, left buttocks and my body armor had stopped all the other rounds. So I was very lucky.

WIAN: Himelright quickly saw two of his buddies were down. Even though he was bleeding, he crawled to the radio to call for help. When the ambulance arrived he helped move the wounded soldiers. In spite of his efforts, their lives were lost. Months later, Himelright's bravery is rewarded with a Bronze Star.

With his military career now coming to a permanent close, Sergeant Himelright plans to fulfill another lifelong goal -- becoming a police officer.

Casey Wian, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: And we bring you heroes stories every week right here on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

HARRIS: And we are expecting an announcement from the Iraqi election commission in the next hour. There you see a live picture of the Baghdad Convention Center. We will take you inside that room for the results next hour on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Oh, the voice, the hair, the legs as Tony was saying. Tina Turner for the best charting album in her career. "All The Best." Of course, that's what it's called. Opened this week at the number two spot. It's over two decades of her recordings. It includes three new tracks.

And the diva is just behind "The Game's" new release. The documentary, it is back at number one this week. Green Day's "American Idiot" is number three. Last week's winner Kenny Chesney dropped down to number. And John Legend's "Get Lifted" leaps into number five.

HARRIS: And one group that's long been comfortable on the music charts is rock superstar Led Zeppelin. That group full of superstars. They were honored with the lifetime achievement Grammy at a pre awards show celebration last night in Los Angeles. They're in their 12 years together, the popular British band from the 1970s never won a Grammy. Superstar guitarist Jimmy Page, one of the best ever, and guitarist, keyboardist, John Hall Jones were on hand to accept the awards.

NGUYEN: Hey, speaking of music, you see them everywhere. Millions of people hooked up to that little white electronic device. Who are these people and how do they fill their seemingly inexhaustible Ipods?

Well, CNN's Tom Foreman takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To grab hold of the hottest selling consumer gadget on the planet, you must move fast. A polished beautiful and some would say downright sexy Ipod is sold every two seconds.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's sleek, it's modern.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's small and it has a lot of music.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It really, really is (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have sold now over 10 million Ipods. Hard to walk down any street now and not see white headphones coming out of people's ears.

FOREMAN: On the surface, this darling of the tech world is simply a hyper charged music machine, a portable computer hard drive capable of recording and playing 10,000 songs, 21 days of non-stop music.

(on camera): The problem is unless you're a radio station, you don't own that much music. So the rapidly expanding cult of pod is coming up with all sorts of ideas about what to do with that extra space.

(voice-over): At the Brearley School in New York, students study foreign languages on Ipods. Now they can hear any time how they sound compared to a native speaker of French or Chinese. HALLEH BALCH, 9th GRADER: And that helps us with like hearing other people speak and hearing how we're supposed to be pronouncing things.

STEPHANIE HULL, THE BREARLEY SCHOOL: We would love to use it more for the history department. There are quite a few applications in the sciences. I can see this extending to many other departments in the coming years.

FOREMAN: The applications go on. Catherine Cornelius is an artist, buying an Ipod with photo storing capabilities.

CATHERINE CORNELIUS: Easy for me to have my portfolio on that, while I'm, you know, who knows who I can run into and show my work to?

FOREMAN: And on Internet sites, such as Podcastalley,com, you can find hundreds of audio shows recorded by amateur podcasters, to be downloaded and listened to on Ipods. Music shows, movie reviews...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I picked it up on DVD the other day. And I just cannot get this film out of my head. So I watched it again today.

FOREMAN: And the first podcasting hit, "The Dawn and Drew Show." The often risque talk of a real couple in Wisconsin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So Christy, we wanted to talk to about what it was like to be in jail.

FOREMAN: All this has spurred the creation of 400 accessories for the little Ipod, who compels his followers to buy, buy, buy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But I enjoy every single feature. I never have a problem with it.

FOREMAN: Critics complain that the rechargeable battery must be replaced by a technician. Competitors say their mock pods offer better sound quality. But everyone watching the tech business knows little pod sets the pace.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Basically if you want to compete with Apple on this thing now, you've got have an Ipod knock-off. You can't do something much different. So it's changed the world that way.

FOREMAN: In 1956's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," space aliens took over people's bodies and minds using giant seed pods. The victims looked the same as they always did. They were just different.

And so it is with modern pod people. You may not know it, but they are among us. They are everywhere. And their numbers are growing.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE) HARRIS: A little frightening.

NGUYEN: Yes. And I'm still waiting for my Ipod. I need to go out and get one. You have one?

HARRIS: No, I don't. I don't. I don't. No, no. And that many have been sold? It's amazing.

NGUYEN: Oh, yes, it's huge.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HARRIS: Let's switch quickly now to our e-mail question of the morning. And we're asking about the best case scenario for Iraq. And there's the address wam@cnn.com. And this first e-mail comes from Vicki.

"The Iraqi people tell us to leave," I should set it up. The best case scenario according to Vicki is this, "The Iraqi people tell us to leave and my soldier son returns to college. Praying for peaceful solutions."

NGUYEN: Well Dave in Michigan says "The best-case scenario for Iraq would be this: A free society, free of United States influence, unique in the world and safe to visit."

And of course we invite you to continue sending those responses in to our questions. What's the best case scenario for Iraq? E-mail us at wam@cnn.com.

HARRIS: And the next hour of CNN SUNDAY MORNING begins right now.

And from the CNN Center this is CNN SUNDAY MORNING. It is February 13th, 8 a.m. at the CNN headquarters in Atlanta and 5 a.m. on the west coast.

It is 4 p.m. in Iraq. This hour in Baghdad, the uncertified results of the January 30th election revealed. You're looking live now at the hall where those results will be announced.

Good morning everyone. I'm Tony Harris.

NGUYEN: And I'm Betty Nguyen. Thanks so much for being with us today.

Well we want to give you a live picture again of that Baghdad convention center where test results of Iraq's historic national election are being announced this morning. There it is. Live reports on several different angles of this story. That is coming up in just a minute.

Meanwhile, a vow from Iran this morning. The nation says it won't shut down its disputed nuclear research program, which has sparked tensions with the U.S. Iran is also rejecting a European offer aimed at limiting its nuclear activities. A foreign minister spokesman warns the U.S. against quote, "playing with fire."

Speaking of fire, it is still burning. Fire fighters in Madrid Spain are still battling a blaze that broke out last night at a 32 story office building. Now several fire fighters suffered smoke inhalation. That blaze gutted the upper floors sparking fears that the whole building could fall. Fire fighters think a short circuit may be to blame.

And the pope is back. A sea of worshipers broke out into applause at the Vatican this morning as John Paul II gave his Sunday blessing. The pope returned to his window pulpit for the first time since being hospitalized with a throat infection.

HARRIS: From Washington to Baghdad CNN brings you full coverage of the Iraqi election results this morning. For the latest on vote counts and a look ahead we go to Nick Robertson in Baghdad, Jane Arraf in Tikrit and Dana Bash in Washington.

But first, let's bring you up to date. The Iraqi people went to the polls on January 30th. It was Iraq's first free election in more than half a century. Officials reported a high turn out. They say about 72 percent of the more than 9.6 million registered voters cast ballots.

No stamp of approval just yet. It will be three days until the morning's results are certified.. Political parties have that much time to file any objections.

NGUYEN: Well about 20 percent of Iraq's population the Sunni Arabs will have almost no representation in this new government. And CNN's Jane Arraf is in the heart of the Sunni triangle. She joins us live from Tikrit. Good morning to you.

ARRAF: Good morning. As we mentioned, there are quite a lot of people in this country, in this region in particular, basically the heart of this Sunni triangle that didn't go out and vote. In fact, if you look at the preliminary figures about 30 percent of registered voters went out. And that's compared to 90 percent in some other areas.

So whatever the results are there is going to be a large problem here expected to be addressed by deals going on in back rooms in Baghdad, in the provinces and major cities and villages as to how to get Sunnis to participate even though the didn't go out and vote in huge numbers.

NGUYEN: So Jane let's talk about these uncertified election results. You say that once they are announced it could cause some deals to be made. Now what about those who are elected with these votes? Do you think they will have a hard time, especially with the Sunnis with their legitimacy in this new government?

ARRAF: They'll have a hard time with their constituents. There are a lot of people who are -- who feel like they've been shut out of this process. They feel like they've been shut out of this new Iraq entirely. And a lot of those people happen to be centered in this province.

We're standing now in Saddam's former palace, Saddam Hussein's former palace now a U.S. military base called (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And there are still quite a lot of people who supported the Baath party, Baath party officials, Baath party sympathizers, not necessarily insurgents who believe they didn't have anyone to vote for.

It's going to be a real challenge, but certainly Shiite politicians, Kurdish politicians have made the right noises. They've said they understand there is a problem and they are reaching out to Sunni leaders to try to incorporate them.

NGUYEN: And Jane, as those numbers are going to be announced again, these are uncertified numbers that will be announced within minutes this morning. As the Sunnis look at these numbers and who will be holding power, are they also wondering if they really didn't partake in this election and that was to their fault and because of that they are not going to have the kind of representation that they would like?

ARRAF: It is a concern. Because a big concern really is that the riff could widen here. That this could become a country which in fact, does break up. Not just because of the continues attacks Shiites, Sunnis but because people feel like they are not part of something called Iraq and that is one of the big problems, one of the big challenges.

Now we wanted a chance to go out to polling stations in the city of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad on election and there was absolute joy at those polling stations as people went out and voted. And those were Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish, Turkoman, all of the ethnic groups that make up this incredible mosaic that is Iraq and could be Iraq.

But there are a lot of other people who didn't go out and vote because they felt simply that they don't have a take, they don't have a role in This process.

NGUYEN: We'll see how the vote shakes out today. All right, CNN's Jane Arraf we appreciate you coming to us from Tikrit today. Thank you.

Tony.

HARRIS: Let's, Betty, take that live picture once again. As we've been mentioning all morning long, the Iraqi election commission is expected to announce final uncertified results from last month's election in just a couple of minutes.

The guy at the podium has come out of the wings a couple of times in the last couple of minutes to announce it seems a tick-tock as to when we will actually hear the results and folks will begin to make their way tot he podium informing reporters there who are gathered, as you can see. We'll continue to watch this picture and monitor it and as soon as we see the spokes people from the Iraqi election commission come forward we will take you to the Baghdad convention center live.

So what is the White House take on Iraq's election results? We're joined now by White House correspondent Dana Bash.

Good morning, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Tony. Well at the White House they are not expecting very many surprises. As you just heard from Jane Arraf, the expectation is that the majority of those election with be Shiites. That is of course, because of the fact that many Sunnis did not vote and because that is proportionate to the country itself in Iraq.

But they certainly are, Tony, going to be looking for -- asking some questions at the White House. First of all, what this will mean ultimately for the government. You're likely to hear a little bit of caution from the White House, just as we heard after the elections took place, that this is just a first step. Well, this is just another step, that you're likely to hear them say, in the long process of getting a government together.

But they will be looking to figure out how those back room deals that Jane Arraf was talking about, how those are going to shake out. They're -- they walk a fine line at the White House because they don't want to make this look like an American process.

They don't want America's finger prints overtly over this. But they also want to try to guide this so that it doesn't end up, as again Jane was saying, as a fear there that this could be faction, that there could be any civil war or anything of the sort..

So they are certainly watching this to see those question. Also to see whether or not there are questions about the U.S. troops, what will happen there. We see that somebody has come to the podium so, let's listen.

FARID AYAR, BCI SPOKESMAN (through translator): Dear brothers and sisters and colleagues today Iraq is taking a new step toward the horizon of democracy, the very wide horizon. A step in which the Iraqi people are giving an example for the practice for the first time of a real Arab true Democratic experience.

This -- these people who were able to teach the world in 10 days from the 30th of the -- last month that they are able to close all the wounds. That they are capable to be a model for the people of the area.

Today this is a new birth for Iraq, a free Iraq and free people who aim to build a state based on civilized values and Democratic values and the principles of peace and love.

I don't want to take any further time, but I want to talk about the delay in announcing the results. The goal of the higher commission was to confirm everything in order to have accurate numbers and true numbers and transparent numbers.

The thinking of the commission was focused on accuracy and not on the time, despite the importance of time. But today the commission, the higher commission is pleased to present to the Iraqi people and to those who participated in the election and those who did not participate the unapproved results of the election on the 30th of January, 2005, which are the elections that people did their best and were very creative. They became a legend in their confrontation with the terrorists and they went to the voting polls standing tall.

Now my colleague Mr. Aqil Al Lami will give you some of the results, final results for the governance, remaining governance. We have announced some results previously.

AQIL AL LAMI, ELECTORAL ADMIN. GENERAL DIRECTOR: Good evening. The results of the election of the council of the Nenovah province governorate, the Independent Iraqi Entity received 2,607 votes. The Gathering of the Iraqi Unity, 3,980 votes. The Coalition of the Two Rivers, the Democratic Coalition, 2,850 votes.

The Democratic Kurdistani list received 109,295 votes. The National Front for the Unity of Iraq received 2,992 votes. The Turkoman of Iraq Front, the council of the tribes, Unified Tribes of Mosul, 6,624 votes.

The Rafinin (ph) -- national Rafinin list, 4,650 votes. The Party of Democratic Building, 560 votes. The Communist Iraqi Party, 1,040 votes. The Unified Democratic Syrian Coalition Party, 750 votes.

The Conciliation of Liberation, 3,250 votes. The Higher Council for Islamic Revolution, 19,255 votes. The Society of the Leaders of Tribes, 903 votes. The Islamic Iraqi Party, 7,065 votes. The Kurdish Party, 755.

The total number of votes in the governorate, 165,934 votes. The number of the invalid ballot box tickets, 8,064 ballots.

Now the province or the governorate of Erbil. The National Kurdistani Union with 240,333. The Democratic Movement of Kurdistan, 1,437. The Socialist Democratic Party of Kurdistan, 1,437. The Islamic Union of Kurdistan, 22,523. The Zahma (ph) Party of Kurdistan, 4,442. The Turkoman Front of Iraq, 3,284. The Democratic Movement of Kurdistan, 687. The list of the Two Rivers, Rafideh (ph), the Democratic Party of Kadil (ph), 647. The Kurdistani Group of Iraq, 18,781. The Party of the Kurdistan Conservatives, 1,300 votes, 347,072.

The elections of the council of Kirkuk. The National Brotherhood Party, 636. The Gathering of the National Unity, Iraqi National Unity, 1,590. The Front of Joint Work Democratic, 181. The National Front (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Iraq 880 votes.

The Gathering for Iraqi Democracy, 390 votes. The Arab United Front, 4,064 votes. The Front of the Turkomans of Iraq, 73,791 votes. The National Movement, Turkomani Movement, 1,851 votes.

The Islamic of Turkomani Coalition, 12,678 votes. The Dawa, Islamic Dawa Party, 1,220. The list of the Two Rivers Rafideh (ph), 1,554. The Party of Democratic Construction, 914. The Democratic Kadil (ph) Party, 536. The Islamic Democratic Party, 333 votes. The Party of the Democratic Solution, 554 votes.

The Islamic Kurdistani Group of Iraq, 2,325 votes. The National Iraqi Assembly, 12,329 votes. The Republic Gathering, Iraqi Gathering, 43,635. The Reconciliation and Liberation Block, 1,133. The Party of the Free Republic, 135 votes. The Union of (UNINTELLIGIBLE), 708 votes.

The Islamic Iraqi Party, 594 votes. The Party of Kurdistani Conservatives, 1,558 votes. The list of the Brotherhood of Kirkuk, 237,303 votes.

The total votes in Kirkuk is 400,392 votes, and the number of invalid ballots, 5,059 ballots.

The governorate of Salaheddin. The Independent Entity, 1,336. The coalition -- Democratic Coalition Unified, 22,160. Islamic Democratic Movement, 1,742. The Iraqi Commission for the Civil Societies, 154 votes. The gathering -- Royal Gathering of Hashemite Iraqi, 1,256. The Gathering of the National Unity, 13,321.

The Shiite Council, 2,530. The National Front for the Unity of Iraq, 378. The Arab Unified Front, 146 votes. The Front of the Turkomans in Iraq, 14,917. The National Movement, Turkomani Movement, 540. The Gathering of Independents of Salaheddin, 4,739 votes.

The National Resali (ph) list, 6,133. The Unified List, 12,815. Independent List, 1,336. The Communist Iraqi Party, 2,409. The National Democratic Free Party under the leadership of Zaib Hasani (ph), 180 votes. The National Coalition Democratic Parties, 1,904. The Dawa list Nabia (ph), 8,691. The National Coalition, 1,224.

The National Gathering, Iraqi Gathering, 10,215. The Republican Gathering, 908. The Block of Reconciliation and Liberation, 17,017. The Movement of National Consensus is 8,641. The National Iraqi Movement, 159. Islamic Iraqi Party, 3,025. Total votes in Salaheddin, 137,476. The number of invalid ballots, 1,834.

The results of the Basra. The Democratic Movement, 4,431. The Organization of Islamic Work in Iraq, 3,997. The Gathering of Democratic Iraqis, 9,628. The Islamic Movement Democratic, 7,728. The Iraqi Commission for the Civil Societies, Independent Civil Societies, 7,525.

The Gathering -- Royal Gathering of Hashemite, 5,381. The Party of Islamic Unity, 6,050. The Gathering of National Iraqi Unity, 7,898. The Islamic Conference for the Tribes of Iraq, 11,306. The Shiite Political Council, 12,098. The Front of Common Work or (UNINTELLIGIBLE) work, Democratic, 4,773.

The National Front for the Unity of Iraq, 2,959. The Gathering for Democracy, Iraqi Democracy, 7,162. The Gathering of Iraq in the Future, 21,236. Hatiabdelaman Abdelavishari (ph), 2,381. The Dawa Movement Parties, 37,997.

The Resali (ph) national list, 3,631. The Democratic Building Party, 2,265. The National Party Democratic... HARRIS: We are watching the reading of the results from the election. Now we want to remind you that these are uncertified. These results are being read by the independent Iraqi election commission from the convention center in Baghdad and it's going to take a while, Octavia Nasr, CNN's senior editor for Arab affairs.

We're talking about 18 provinces that we're going to work through. So this is going to be a lengthy process today.

OCTAVIA NASR, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Right. And they're listing everything and it seems that the Iraqis are really taking pride in listing every province and listing every party, every coalition. The numbers...

HARRIS: It makes sense.

NASR: It makes sense. And you heard in the beginning of the presentation the official from the electoral commission. He's saying this is, you know, Iraqis are teaching other Arabs a lesson in democracy. They're taking a lot of pride in this.

HARRIS: A pride filled day.

NASR: Right. They're going to take their time. They're going to enjoy and they're going to give us the results one vote at a time, it seems like.

NGUYEN: Exactly, and they're going through all the different provinces. But as we're listening to this a lot of people have been looking at the numbers ahead of time and just at least from those -- the counts that they're projecting, what are we looking at as to whose going to take the number one spot at this point?

NASR: It seems like -- I mean we go by what Arab media reports are saying. I mean they're very close to the counting. They're very close to the officials. What they've been predicting even from day one, from the election day, they've been predicting that the Shiite are going to win the most votes, the majority of votes and then it was going to be a question as to where the Kurds are going to come in this equation.

The papers yesterday and this morning are saying that the Kurds are going to be getting number two number of votes and then the Prime Minister Allawi. So first Shia, which was expected...

HARRIS: That was...

NASR: The surprise is the Kurds really.

HARRIS: Exactly. And you're absolutely right. This result is not going to surprise a lot of people. Dana Bash, our white House correspondent, was mentioning it. The White House understands how this will likely play out. The Shia endorsed this process early on.

They endorsed the elections. The grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani wanted these elections sooner not later understanding that this was an opportunity, am I correct here, to capture power long denied by the Sunnis.

NASR: That's exactly what happened and that's...

HARRIS: Did I sum it up OK?

NASR: You did a good job. You did a good job. You know the Shia were oppressed under Saddam Hussein for so many years. They had no voice. They had no power. And what Arab experts have been saying, they've been saying why were people surprised that the Shia would do so well in these elections.

Well this is their opportunity, as you said, this is their opportunity to go and cast their ballot and to play a major role in the future of Iraq. What some people, the critics were saying...

HARRIS: And they're out there.

NASR: Absolutely they're out. And what they're saying, they're saying look this was not a democratic process when only the Shia get to vote whereas the Sunnis are not voting. Then you have another group saying well, the Sunnis could have voted, but it was their choice to boycott the elections and then it was...

HARRIS; Yes, but they were being threatened and harassed and harassed and threatened by the insurgency by any number of groups. We talk about Zarqawi's group all the time, but you right pointed out for a long time now that it's not just Zarqawi there were a number of groups out there that were threatening folks in that region, in the so-called Sunni tribe.

NGUYEN: But do you think as they're watching this today, that they're stepping back and saying to themselves we should have went out to vote? We have lost some seats because we didn't get out to vote.

NASR: Well, again by checking the media and checking their statements, you know, the Sunni clerics have been very vocal about these elections. They said that they did not believe that they were democratic. They said...

HARRIS: Or legitimate, yes...

NASR: They said that they are going to embrace, they are going to work with the new government. It doesn't matter who it's going to be the head of this government they're going to work with them. But they do not believe that this was a democratic process because what they were saying is what Tony was saying, it was very dangerous to conduct this vote. And they were saying why don't we postpone a little bit.

And since the postponement was not even in the picture they decided to pull out. Now the danger to the voters is very real. Voters did not go out and vote because there were a lot of threats and there was a lot of violence around election day.

But that really doesn't reflect positively on the candidates.

HARRIS: Yes.

NASR: People are saying, people in Iraq and elsewhere are saying the candidates should have stayed on They should have kept their names on the ballot. They should have went on with it because that would have encouraged more Sunnis to go out and vote.

So it's one of those complicated things, which have a tendency of complicating things on the ground later. If the Sunnis don't get what they want later on there is talk on Arab media of the possibility of even a civil war at this point.

HARRIS: OK. I want to get to that in a moment, but let's backtrack this just a little bit because you've been very good a reminding us that in watching the Arab media that the Arab media was at times skeptical of the process. But I remember you being here on election day and bringing us some of what you had been finding on the Web sites that day and the day before in that the election process ultimately was being endorsed.

NASR: Right. Arab media was very skeptical about this whole process. You know they haven't been very -- in favor of the U.S. presence in Iraq.

HARRIS: Yes.

NASR: ...the coalition presence in Iraq. So leading up to elections that were very skeptical. They were saying the elections are not going to take place. There would be a lot of violence and so forth. So yes, on election day they embraced it. They saw the results. They couldn't -- people were saying this is the purple ink election.

HARRIS: Yes, yes.

NASR: It proves that elections did take place and that it was a democratic process. And it was something for the Arab media to enjoy sort of, you know. Now the question is going to be the results. How are these results going to effect things on the ground.

HARRIS: Moving forward.

NASR: And the elements...

NGUYEN: Who's going to get which spot when it comes to president?

HARRIS: Don't go anywhere. Stay here Octavia. Don't go anywhere.

NGUYEN: Exactly. We're going to continue our coverage of this. In fact we are going to be preempting "HOUSE CALL" with doctor Sanjay Gupta, as we continue our live coverage of the Iraqi uncertified election results.

We're going to take a quick break right now and come back live with all of that. Stay tuned. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Boy that's a good question, Iraq next chapter. We are continuing to follow the reporting of the election results from the historic Baghdad and Iraq elections two weeks ago throughout that entire country.

We are getting some very interesting figures, 8.55 million votes cast in that election two weeks ago and that is a wonderful figure. Many, many Iraqis went out to vote. Most of the population that was eligible to vote actually did participate.

We will continue to follow this and monitor the vote count throughout the morning.

NGUYEN: But in the meantime we want to go live now to Baghdad for senior international correspondent Nic Robertson, who is standing by as he is listening to all the numbers being presented today.

Hi, Nic.

ROBERTSON: Hi there, Betty. Well, what we're hearing so far, of course, are these results coming in with the different provincial parties, not the big blocks that were at play for the national elections. But what we can see is if you look at what we were listening to earlier, Salaheddin -- the hometown of Saddam Hussein, Tikrit is in Salaheddin province -- and if you just look at the overall total numbers, about 137,000 people came out to vote -- to vote. This was -- this is a majority Sunni province. The numbers are really down compared to some of the other provinces we have been hearing from -- 400,000 in another northern province. Many more in the south, in Basra.

So again, I think what we're seeing is an affirmation of the suspicions that in those Sunni-dominated provinces, the figures would be down.

8.55 million, perhaps getting up towards 60 percent of the total electorate, but of course we haven't been given a final figure of the electorate. We always knew, or we'd known from the provisional figures, very high turnout in the south. High again in the north, where the Kurdish areas were. But it seems to me this central Sunni triangle, the low turnout there that is beginning to show in these early figures dragging that overall national average of turnout down a little, Betty.

NGUYEN: Nic, so what kind of deals are going to be made? Jane Arraf spoke earlier about deals being made so that Sunnis can come into some kind of power in this new government. With this low turnout, which we're seeing today, with the numbers that are being presented, what kind of deals are being made so they can have a spot in this new government?

ROBERTSON: Well, really, the strongest political party at this time, United Iraqi Alliance, its leading politicians have already been in closed-door meetings with some of the leading Sunni politicians, and that is because those politicians, the Sunni politicians, want to get involved in the drafting of the constitution for Iraq. This is going to be a permanent document that is going to enshrine the laws for the future of the country, until such time as they change it again. So there is an element that is realizing that they've missed an opportunity by not taking part in the elections, and they are trying to get on board with the process, and of course this is the big test, if you will. Will this disenfranchise the Sunnis, or will they realize that they've made a mistake and get involved? And the early indications are some of the influential figures, the Association of Muslim Scholars, are getting involved, and perhaps for those that want to see the Sunnis get involved in the electoral process, that's a very good indication for them, Betty.

NGUYEN: Speaking of getting involved, those numbers again are really kind of staggering. 8.55 million Iraqis cast their vote in this election. Some 9.6 million eligible to vote. So that's large number. What does that say about the legitimacy of this new government? Do they really have a large backing, considering the number of people who actually came out to take part in this election?

ROBERTSON: That was very clear on election day, that the figures -- that the numbers of people coming out through the day really came up through the day, and particularly in some of those areas where terrorism and the threat of violence had really weighed heavily on people's minds. The voting figures really came up. The number of people coming out through the day really came up, and this really answered for a lot of people here the question of legitimacy of the government. If so many people came out, therefore this is a more legitimate -- therefore the government is more legitimate.

Really, the questions are being asked that you would see perhaps in some of the minority communities. We've seen the Turkoman demonstrating saying that they are not getting a full representation. They're perhaps 1 to 2 percent of the total population in the country. And that element of, again, of Sunnis. Do they feel disenfranchised?

But the indication is -- is that because the numbers were high, this adds a greater level of legitimacy, and that's what the Iraqis here are saying. And I talked to Sunnis here who voted in the elections. They wanted more people to vote in their communities. They understood why they hadn't, but they believe that it was important, and that does seem to be the prevailing view -- Betty.

NGUYEN: Nic, there's going to be three days to certify these uncertified votes right now, which are being announced as we speak. But there were some concerns, because some 300 ballot boxes had to be recounted in this election. Do you think these will be certified within three days, or are we going to see some objections to these results?

ROBERTSON: I think the deductions from the questionable ballot boxes have already been made. There were 40 cases -- or 40 ballot boxes that were disallowed by the electoral commission just a couple of days ago. So they have made those final calculations. This period of time for the queries to be made, this three-day period before the certification is to allow anyone to come forward that takes a look at the results and says, that's not right and here's the reason. And then those cases will be analyzed and given time for full explanation.

But I think any ballot boxes that were going to be disqualified, that really has already happened. And when they began the process of announcing the results here, they were very keen to say, look, there hasn't been a delay. This has all been about accuracy. This has all been about transparency. We don't want to make any mistakes. They have had three sets of people checking the facts and figures as they come in every step of the way, working seven days a week, 24 hours a day, they've been telling us.

So it has been -- it has been a system that has had sort of full accountability all the way through, full transparency, and therefore the chance of somebody coming back and saying, hey, there's a box of ballots here that shouldn't have been counted, should have been disqualified, that doesn't seem likely at this stage, Betty.

NGUYEN: All right, CNN's Nic Robertson in Baghdad for us. Nic, we'll be checking in with you a little bit later on.

Thank you.

HARRIS: And Betty, let's spend a coupled of minutes talking to our White House correspondent Dana Bash this morning. And Dana, you've just heard Nic talking about the turn out in the Sunni areas is pretty abysmal.

And you know, there was a lot of talk about the Sunnis leading up in the run up to this election and how would they turn out and how would they be incorporated in this process of the new government.

There was a lot of concern about their participation before the election. What do you think is likely to be the administration's reaction to these abysmal numbers coming out of the Sunni area?

BASH: Well as we've talked about before, Tony, I don't think there's going to be a lot of surprise about that. The expectation was that the Shia majority would get the majority of the votes and that certainly is what we're seeing now.

But obviously it's very early. You see that they're still announcing these results. So we don't have any official White House reaction yet. But you can bet that what they are likely to do is focus on what they see as the big picture here, which is that this is another example of democracy in Iraq actually working.

That if you look at the theater, if you will, of this press conference of going through and announcing province by province the fact that there were so many votes, you know, 8.55 million votes, as Nic said, that's possibly 60 percent of the electorate. That's a pretty impressive number...

HARRIS: Sure is.

BASH: ...of people going out to vote. So in terms of the specifics certainly there are a lot of questions still to be answer, but you're likely to hear the White House talk about this just being another step in a very long process toward an ultimate democracy but possibly just talk about, from their point of view, the success and the fact that this proves that these elections were a success.

HARRIS: You know what, Dana, yes you're absolutely right. There's a lot take from this. But I'm going to go back to that Sunni point just to express it this way.

When we heard conversation about the Sunni involvement in the reelection, in the run up, the concern was is that if the Sunnis don't take part in this process in significant numbers it might fuel, add fuel to the insurgency and certainly you heard that as well, correct?

BASH: That's right. And you know it's interesting to look -- go back two weeks at the reaction to the fact that the election did go off without a lot of violence, and the surprise, frankly, the sigh of relief even that you heard from the White House.

But there was a sort of memory of their MO, if you will, after the actual or during the actual beginning of the war after Baghdad fell.

HARRIS: Yes.

BASH: The same sort of thought that well, wow what happened? The violence wasn't as bad as we thought and then they slowly emerged. There certainly is concern that this is going to happen. In fact we saw it this week. I think there were about 108 people, Iraqis killed just in the past week and the insurgency does seem to have kicked up a bit at this point.

But there certainly is concern that the Sunnis will actually see these numbers and the insurgency will escalate even more. That is certainly something that they're thinking about, the White House, no question, Tony.

HARRIS: And Dana one last question. If it wasn't the Iraqi show up to this point, you have to think that the administration believes that it is certainly the Iraqis show from this point on. They get now to write this constitution. They get now to pick the president, the prime minister and so on and so forth. It is certainly their show now.

BASH: That's right. And that is again the delicate dance that the White House has been dancing and will continue to because it -- a lot of open questions as to what this 275 member assembly will create in terms of the government. Whether or not it will be a theocracy, if you will.

And there is concern that has been voiced by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and others that they certainly don't want this to look like Iran, but also caution that it's not going to look like America and that you have to -- American shave to realize that they are going to have to create this government themselves.

But again, as you mentioned, it is certainly going to be an Iraq process, but there is not question that the Americans are going to be working behind the scenes to try to make sure that the Sunnis are represented in some way.

HARRIS: White House correspondent Dana Bash. Very good. Dana, thank you.

BASH: Thank you.

NGUYEN: And we want to see how the Arab world is reacting to all the numbers that are coming out today. For that we want to bring in our senior editor for Arab affairs and that is Octavia Nasr. Thanks for being with us this morning.

We are getting some numbers in right now from Reuters. Reuters is reporting that the Shiite alliance is getting 47.6 percent of the vote, Kurds with 25.4 percent and Allawi's group with 13.6 percent. Now that is pretty much on par with what was projected, correct?

NASR: Right, almost. The Shia were expected to get some 60 percent. But these are very close. I'm monitoring...

HARRIS: Unofficial count.

NASR: Yes. And of course they're still announcing, still giving numbers. We can see them there.

I'm watching, as you see here, as you guys were doing your interviews and they are projecting. They are reporting the same things basically. They're giving 48 percent to the Sistani. More than 25 percent to the Kurds and the Allawi is sort of up in the air. They're not giving any results on that yet because it seems they're not clear on those numbers.

So Arab media are following the story just as we are with numbers and guess.

NGUYEN: What do those numbers mean when it comes to actual people and positions?

NASR: Well it means a lot because, you know, you have a few positions now that are up for grabs. You have a president's position, two vice president's position, a prime minister and you have a speaker of the house position.

The Shia have indicated that they are not interested in the president or vice president positions. What they want, they want the prime minister's position because they believe that this is where the power is...

NGUYEN: The power is.

NASR: And it seems that, I mean these numbers are going to indicate whether they are going to get what they want or not with 48 percent...

HARRIS: The Kurds want that too.

NASR: Well the Kurds... HARRIS: Will they settle for the presidency?

NASR: Right. They're not after the prime minister's position. It seems like, and I have to tell you on Arab media all these Arab experts and politicians have been saying that the reason why the results were not announced earlier is that they wanted to figure out that distribution before those results are announced.

They wanted to make sure that all the parties involved know exactly who's going to get what, which piece of the cake they're going to get.

And basically it seems like even this morning's papers Hasfi (ph), for example, actually all of them. All the Arab papers that I read this morning the headline there is that Allawi is saying it's OK. He welcomes Kurdish president of Iraq. And that seems to be the headline.

HARRIS: Why does he have to sign off on it? Why is that statement the headline? I mean look, he is essentially -- isn't he essentially, I don't want to say done, but close to done? I mean he's...

NASR: I wouldn't say that.

HARRIS: You think he's still a player?

NASR: I wouldn't say that. I mean he is the interim prime minister. He remains the prime minister of Iraq at this point. His opinion -- he represents a good portion of the population. He ran in this election.

HARRIS: Yes.

NASR: He does stand to get a good position in the new government. So his opinion matters. Now why it's a headline. Not because of what he said, but because of the Kurds. I think this is going to be the story that not many people are focusing on, but it's going to turn out to be the success story of the election.

HARRIS: Well, when we come back we're going to talk more about that. Because I think Allawi and his -- well, never mind. We'll get to that...

NGUYEN: Yes, we'll get to that when we come back. We are going to take a quick break, but we do want to tell you that CNN has confirmed that eight million votes were cast in this election.

And all of this brings us to our e-mail question of the day. What is the best case scenario for Iraq? Send us your thoughts this morning to wam@cnn.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: All right. We're going to take you back now to the Baghdad convention center where there is a little question and answer session going on right now. Let's listen in.

AYAR: The percentages that were given to all of the candidates here we take -- we divide the total of the number. But this is an educator and not a fixed matter because their are differences in the votes and the percentages.

So there is an older number, 17 and it has been distributed or it's being distributed now and it has complete clarifications of these mathematical issues and you can look at that leaflet that is being circulated.

And also you can look on the location of the commission date in that it has all of the details related to the distribution of the seats in the national assembly in a very scientific way.

Anything we may say here can be misinterpreted and could not be clear. So we will rely on the Internet page for the commission. Thank you.

(UNINTELLIGIBLE) television.

QUESTION: You mentioned the names of independent candidates and it became clear that they are -- they belong to other parties. For example, the person number one the list 123, the same person has number 44 and maybe 30. So we got votes from both list. What is the solution for this?

AYAR: We have, of course, a committee that audits these matters. Of course the results that were allowed shortly after the approval we will lay those people who will occupy these places, whether international counsel of Kurdistan or the international assembly.

So, after the completion of the complaint period and the approval of the final results.

Amisha (ph) newspaper.

QUESTION: You said that you would not accept any complaints regarding the number that is in front of every party or structure, but you -- only for relations. The complaints must be about the procedures and not the numbers, as we stated. So we cannot recount some areas?

AYAR: No.

QUESTION: Ahatchanel (ph). Does these results include the Iraqis abroad as well?

AYAR: Yes. It includes the results of the elections abroad. So we're all now unified with regard to the national assembly.

QUESTION: Can you tell me the period needed for the approval of these results?

AYAR: As of tomorrow if there are complaints the commission will receive it and everybody has three days. During these three days we will try to respond to some of these complaints and anyone may extend the time.

When we finish all of this we will approve the results.

QUESTION: Hi. I was wondering what -- how the seats -- how the votes are allocated. If votes went to a candidate who did not receive one seat do those votes disappear? And then how is the percentage of votes required to get a seat adjusted? Thanks.

AYAR: If I understood the question correctly what is the required number to receive -- to get a seat in the national assembly or the government counsel. This will be through dividing. If I understood the question correctly that -- can you repeat...

QUESTION: Sorry. There are many parties who will not receive any seats at all. So those votes just -- those end up -- those votes are not reallocated to other parties, correct?

AYAR: Definitely. The parties or the individuals or the structures that did not -- were not able to receive the required votes will not -- their votes will not be given to other parties.

There is order number 17 regarding the method of counting the votes and they are -- it is published in Arabic and English and there are also instructions also regarding the allocation of seats.

QUESTION: Zameda (ph), per Iraq, what are the number of the total voters inside and outside of Iraq? The total number of voters internally and externally.

AYAR: Three -- 8,456,000 of 260. So as we said in the past we said we said we had some anticipations long time ago that there are about eight million voters out of 14.2 million registered voters. In addition to 250,000 that's left. So our estimate was very close to this actual number

Mohamed Dilwa (ph) from Kuwait News Agency.

QUESTION: The independent democratic group does that -- received a certain number. Does that mean that the tribes that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) does not enter into the national assembly?

AYAR: Until now we have not counted the percentage for every seat. When the calculations are made with the correct numbers of votes and we divide it on the number of seas we will be able to answer that.

QUESTION: How many approximately?

AYAR: It will appear after the period oft he complaints. And after test approval of the results we will provide you with list of those who will get seats in the national assembly.

Roger Dislai (ph).

QUESTION: There is the issue of Kirkuk and the problems of the protests of the Turkoman in Kirkuk. How would you deal with this issue?

AYAR: There are, of course at first we would like to say that any complaints or protests presented to the commission we encourage it and we welcome it. This is a part of a real democracy and transparency.

There were many complaints and protests presented by various groups and we have dealt with each one of them and we respect those who submit these complaints and we also try to respond to these complaints in an acceptable way to those who complain.

And in Kirkuk also these issues were also studied and were taken into consideration and all the issues were resolved related to this area.

QUESTION: With regard to the issue of the 300 boxes that were recounted, the commission has not clarified so far what was the nature of the complaints regarding these boxes and how did they do the recount and what did they find? What were the results?

AYAR: The complaints that were presented to the commission in general were -- appeared during the audits by the commission itself. The apparatus for counting and the commission discovered some of these mistakes and some of the doubts, which led us to bring these boxes, these suspected boxes from all the governments in Iraq and we brought it to the national -- to the headquarters and we recounted these boxes and we took the appropriate procedures.

These boxes did not come as a result of complaint, but we as a commission discovered it ourselves and brought it here to the headquarters.

Ali Sufar, Dawa newspaper.

QUESTION: Doctor Farid thank you for all your efforts that you exerted in this process and we thank you for the transparency of the commission. But there is simple -- now 160 line -- obtain 166 seat. Do you have an idea about the accuracy of this figure?

AYAR: First of all, we congratulate everybody. Those who did well and those who didn't because as -- just the mere participation in the election process, this national effort everybody is a winner.

So we are all very happy to be able to reach these good results for all. And we are sure that this list or that list that they are all Iraqi list and if they win they are for Iraq. If they don't win they're also are for Iraq. And we wish everybody would win.

This is what I wanted to say. I would like to remind you with the fact that these elections that were held in Iraq for the first time in 50 years was conducted in a wonderful way.

We were told by the experts of the United Nations that the percentage of mistakes or the...

NGUYEN: You've been listening to members of the Iraqi election commission do a question and answer session with members of the media there after they had announced the uncertified results from the Iraqi election. Some 8.55 million Iraqis voted in that election. That is 58 percent turn out. Quite a large turn out.

And of course, we will continue our live coverage of these elections results when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired February 13, 2005 - 07:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BETTY NYUGEN, CNN ANCHOR: Two weeks ago, they voted for the first time in 50 years. Now today, the outcome, as the people in Iraq see democracy in action.
Good morning, everybody. From the CNN Center here in Atlanta, this is CNN SUNDAY MORNING. It's February 13th. I'm Betty Nguyen.

TONY HARRIS: And I'm Tony Harris. 7:00 a.m. here in the East and 3:00 p.m. in Baghdad. Thank you for being with us.

Now in the news, we'll have to wait at least another hour, maybe longer, to learn who won last month's elections in Iraq. The results will not be certified for three days, but the unofficial election returns are to be made public around 8:00 a.m. Eastern time. CNN will carry that announcement live from Baghdad.

Israel's cabinet has approved the list of 500 Palestinian prisoners to be released as a goodwill gesture. The list includes only prisoners who have served at least two-thirds of their sentences, and does not include any accused of killing Israelis. The releases begin in the next two days.

Pope John Paul II appeared at his apartment window overlooking St. Peters Square this morning. He delivered his weekly blessing right on schedule. The 84-year old pope was released from a Rome hospital on Thursday following nine days of treatment for a throat infection.

North Korea is coming under pressure from its closest ally. China's foreign minister tells Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice his country will push for more six party talks as soon as possible on North Korea's nuclear program. The North Koreans announced last week that they are pulling out of those talks.

NGUYEN: Well coming up this hour, an evil plot on the day for love? Well, police say this man planned to give dozens of special gifts for Valentine's Day. That gift was a mass suicide party.

So was it real or just a prank? We'll find out. And the leader of North Korea held a top spot on the list of world's worst dictators. So why was he bumped from number one? And who took his place?

Also, a mess o' plenty in bountiful Utah. It started with a two car crash, but ended in a multi car pile-up. We'll tell you what happened on this crash course. But first, our top story this morning, the vote count from the January 30th Iraqi election will be announced this morning around 8:00 Eastern time. Now our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson covering the election. And he is live in Baghdad.

Nic, is the excitement building there this morning?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Betty, I think there's certainly a lot of expectation. But really, the thunder of the results has been stolen already. The preliminary results have pretty much shown, as expected, that the main religious Shia party has really come out ahead of the others.

Certainly that's what their politicians have been saying over the last week or so. And what that really means is that they're going to get the top jobs in this new 275 member national assembly.

And of course, if the religious parties do well, that means the constitution that the assembly will be drawing up in the coming months, will also have a religious flavor.

The main party backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, very strong in the south, strong it seems in Baghdad. It's likely that the Kurdish Alliance parties from the north will do well, but the overall tenor, if you will, of what's going to come out of these elections and the constitution that gets drawn up afterwards from this new political makeup will have a much bigger religious flavor than it's had in the past 30.

NGUYEN: Nic, what about the Sunni vote and how they will be represented in this new government?

ROBERTSON: Well, they are being invited to draft -- help draft the constitution by some of the religious parties here. We've heard that already that in some Sunni provinces, the vote turnout was only -- was less than 10 percent of the potential electorate.

So in some areas, a low turnout, meaning that they're perhaps won't be as many Sunni politicians representing the Sunni community, as there will be Shias and Kurds, what the Shia community say they want to do, and their leading politicians say they want to include the Sunni politicians.

But there are two risks here that you get disenfranchisement of the Sunni community. Or they say, look, we made a mistake and we need to get involved in electoral process.

And in many ways, that's sort of the big political gamble that's going on at the moment, Betty.

NGUYEN: All right, CNN's Nic Robertson in Baghdad. We'll be checking back with you this morning. Thank you, Nic.

With all the votes now counted in Iraq, here's what happens next. Election results will be certified in three days if voting or counting complaints are not upheld. A 275 member national assembly will be formed, based on the share of the vote each candidate gets. That national assembly will pick a president and two deputies.

Those three people will then choose a prime minister and a cabinet. The prime minister and cabinet will ask the national assembly for a vote of confidence. The national assembly will draft a constitution by August 15th. And the Iraqi people will vote on that constitution by October 15th. And if they approve it, a general election will be held by December 15th and a new government will take office by the end of the year.

HARRIS: So a lot to do. Well, the uncertified election results will be released for maybe another hour or so. Our guest this morning has an optimistic view of the situation in Iraq and the Bush administration's policy there.

Barbara Ferguson is Washington bureau chief for the Arab News, an English daily newspaper based in Saudi Arabia.

Barbara, are you there? Good morning.

BARBARA FERGUSON, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF FOR ARAB NEWS: I am. And a bleary-eyed good morning to you, Tony.

HARRIS: Well, I got to ask you first question at the top, as you look at these uncertified results, we keep saying that because the results will be certified in the next three days. So they're still kind of unofficial, official results, as you look at this, the grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, is he the most powerful man in Iraq today, the de facto president, the de facto whatever, the chief architect of this coming constitution?

FERGUSON: I hear he's already being referred to as the Sistani Tsunami.

HARRIS: So that means he is in fact the man right now?

FERGUSON: Absolutely. He and his coalition are the -- you know, they are in power. And things are going to change as a result of this historic election.

HARRIS: OK, so let's get into that. How should folks at home feel about this? Is this a good development that Sistani will essentially be calling the shots? Is it something that we should be concerned about?

FERGUSON: Right. Very good point. Well, you know, Sistani is Iranian. And I think many people are concerned about that. But what I think it is important to remember is that number one, Sistani has said from the very beginning, he does not want to recreate an Iranian type government.

HARRIS: With the mullahs and -- yes.

FERGUSON: Right. Absolutely. And you know, secondly, I think that he realizes, for example, it's important to know that right now, violence is increasing in Iraq.

HARRIS: Yes.

FERGUSON: And a lot of the insurgents are targeting the Shia because they want to lure them into a civil war. So Sistani and his men are sitting cool right now. They do want to form this government.

HARRIS: OK, now this -- these results are about percentages. And percentages turn into seats, correct?

FERGUSON: Correct.

HARRIS: OK.

FERGUSON: Two-hundred and seventy-five.

HARRIS: So will there be fights over percentages if you're a part of a group that doesn't like the percentage, doesn't like the outcome, do you anticipate fighting over these numbers?

FERGUSON: Yes. The Kurds are all -- who have come in second, they are already saying they want to have the seat of either president of prime minister.

HARRIS: Yes.

FERGUSON: So yes, the squabbling has begun.

HARRIS: The United Iraqi Alliance, this is the religious Shiite group, correct?

FERGUSON: Correct.

HARRIS: They are absolutely flat out going to dominate this new assembly. And what does that mean?

FERGUSON: Well, as I said, we have to be very careful that number one, they bring everyone into the coalition, that the Sunnis who have as you know who have ruled the country for decades and are now the minorities in their own country...

HARRIS: Yes.

FERGUSON: ...that they need to feel as though they're going to be able to participate in this new coalition, that they're going to be able to help write the constitution, and that they're going to be fairly represented.

I am concerned with the amount of violence that's taking place. I'm concerned with the fact that they're targeting civilians. You know, the explosion yesterday in the bakery, things like this, are very distracting...

HARRIS: Yes.

FERGUSON: ...when it comes to forming a new government.

HARRIS: One more quick one, Barbara. What do you see the evolving role of the coalition in all of this? Will, for example, the coalition have a hand in picking the next president?

FERGUSON: You mean the U.S. backed coalition?

HARRIS: Yes.

FERGUSON: Yes. Well, don't forget, we're withdrawing troops already. 15,000 are on their way home. So this is really dicey, because if it looks as though the Americans are involved with this, if it looks as though in any way they are manipulating the outcome of this election, I think that this will lead to big trouble on the ground.

HARRIS: Barbara Ferguson, good to see you. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us. It's early this morning.

FERGUSON: Thanks, Tony.

HARRIS: Thank you. OK...

FERGUSON: Bye now.

HARRIS: ...and we will carry the announcement of Iraq's final uncertified election results live next hour on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

And here's our e-mail question this morning. What's the best case scenario for Iraq? Tell us what you think. We are at wam@cnn.com. And we'll read your replies throughout the morning.

NGUYEN: Firefighters in Spain are still trying to control a blaze at a downtown Madrid skyscraper this morning. That raging fire broke out last night and is still burning, sparking fears that the 32 story building could collapse.

Now the flames already gutted the upper part of the office building. Three firefighters suffered smoke inhalation, but there are no reports of any other injuries. And officials don't believe the blaze was set on purpose. Firefighters think a short circuit may be to blame.

HARRIS: Police in Oregon are stepping up their investigation of an alleged Internet suicide pact that was to have been carried out tomorrow on Valentine's Day. And while one disturbing element remains unresolved, other aspects are coming into focus.

CNN's Kimberly Osias explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OSIAS: Mr. Krein, what do you have to say for yourself?

(voice-over): Gerald Krein walked shackled from a jail cell to a police questioning room. The 26-year old charged with solicitation to commit murder after allegedly setting up a suicide pact on the Internet with at least 32 people, spanning several states and countries as well. WESLEY GRABOWSKI, NEIGHBOR: I was shocked. At first, when I saw the police show up, I pretty much figured it was a drug bust. And then to my surprise, I found out what it really was.

OSIAS: The alleged plot was exposed earlier this week when a Canadian woman who went by the screen name "hapieluv" got cold feet and alerted authorities.

Today, three other women came forward, revealing more information about the group called SuicideParty2005, which communicated on a chatroom that went by that name.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From the very beginning. You know, have you ever thought about it? Do you want to join a suicide party? And that was like the third thing he asked me.

OSIAS: Saturday, authorities noticed a significant theme. Krein targeted women and alluded to sex as well. Krein is behind bars, but authorities worry about another group member who claimed to be a mother, planning to kill her two young children and then herself.

TIM EVINGER, SHERIFF, KLAMATH COUNTY, OREGON: As far as the children go, it's still a worldwide search at this point that we're still examining information.

OSIAS: But police concede they can't be sure whether any of the members, including Krein himself, planned to commit suicide or whether some were playing a prank.

However, police said the women who came forward gave consistent accounts of how the suicides were to be carried out, saying members were going to hang themselves from high ceilings.

Wednesday, authorities seized Krein's computer hard drive and DVDs from his family's home.

ED CALEB, KLAMATH COUNTY DISTRICT ATTY: He may have attempted to download his computer or erase a bunch of stuff that's on there.

OSIAS: Prosecutors said they expect to seek second degree attempted manslaughter charges before a grand jury on Monday.

Kimberly Osias, CNN, Klamath County, Oregon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: Well, too much power, it can be dangerous. And some of the world's most powerful leaders are the living proof of that. We will tell you who made the list of the absolute worst. That's a little bit later this hour.

HARRIS: And check out these pictures. A commute gone bad in Utah. Mangled, overturned cars, injured drivers, what a mess. We'll have details next.

(WEATHER REPORT) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: And a check of stories across American now. The world's largest discount retailer will pay more than $135,000 to settle federal charges that it broke child labor laws. The government says Wal-mart illegally used teenage workers to operate hazardous equipment like chain saws and fork lifts.

In some of its stores, the company denies the allegations. They're parting like it's 1980 in Lake Placid, New York. The city is celebrating the U.S. Olympic hockey team that won a gold medal 25 years ago, pulling off a miracle on ice. Do you believe in miracles? Remember that call from Al Michaels against a once unbeatable Russian team. Many members of the 1980 Olympic team will return to Lake Placid for a two week celebration.

And an old disco song by Grace Jones says pull up to the bumper, Betty, but don't sing it in bountiful Utah. The city is still trying to recover after a 13 car pile-up that shut down interstate 15 in both directions for almost six hours yesterday. And many motorists rammed and rear ended. Officials say the chain reaction crash started when two cars collided in foggy weather.

And guys, she is off the market. We'll tell you who put a rock on Christina Aguilera's finger later this hour. It's what a girl wants.

NGUYEN: Time now to check in on what is happening in other parts of the world today.

HARRIS: And for that, let's go to Anand Naidoo at the International Desk.

Anand, good morning.

ANAND NAIDOO, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, a very good morning from me. Iraq's, of course, the main news, but there's been one other big development coming out of the Middle East. The Israeli government says it will release 500 Palestinian prisoners over the next several days. Those approved for release have each served two- thirds of their sentences. And none are accused of killing Israelis.

It's not quite a done deal yet, but the names will be posted on a Web site so anyone can file an objection. That announcement part of last week's Sharm el-Sheikh cease-fire agreement.

In Pakistan, a major relief underway for tens of thousands of people hit by storms, heavy rains, and avalanches. At least 424 deaths are being blamed on the severe weather. Most died when three dams burst in the southwestern part of the country. Hundreds are still missing. Officials say between 25 and 30,000 people are affected by the disaster.

Schools were also killed in avalanches in the Pakistani held part of Kashmir. The country is deploying troops to help with rescue efforts. Disaster of a different kind in the Spanish capitol in Madrid, one of the city's landmark office towns is destroyed in a fire overnight. We received these pictures early this morning. Plumes of smoke were still rising out of the structure. At least six of the upper floors collapsed. The building was believed to be empty. Authorities say there's no reason, repeat no reason, to believe the fire and in the center was an act of terrorism.

Incidentally, that part of Madrid, the capitol of Spain there, is known as little Manhattan.

That's all for me. Back with more later.

HARRIS: OK, thank you.

NGUYEN: Looking forward to that.

HARRIS: Well, they've been busy tallying the ballots. Now the results are in. We're expecting vote counts for Iraq's historic election. About 40 minutes and don't forget our e-mail question. Tell us what's the best case scenario for Iraq. We're at wam@cnn.com. Plus the gates are open. All 7500 of them. We'll show you the big apple's biggest work of art straight ahead on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Take a look at this. This is a big wide shot for you. See, the orange there. They are simply called the Gate. There's a close-up. And they're open for your viewing. Live pictures from New York City this morning.

The orange exercise in art in Manhattan's Central Park, includes 7500 gates.

HARRIS: Wow.

NGUYEN: That was 23 miles, uses over a million square feet of nylon fabric, and took about 600 workers to install. It is the biggest artwork in city history.

HARRIS: Well, you know, I want to say that that's orange. The drapes are orange, but I understand that artistically, I need to say it's saffron.

NGUYEN: Saffron, yes.

HARRIS: It's saffron.

NGUYEN: Saffron.

HARRIS: You know, a great day yesterday weather-wise for the unveiling of the Gates. And it looks like, Orelon, it's going to be pretty nice day today, at least a good start.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HARRIS: Well, here's some news this morning.

NGUYEN: Are you upset about this news?

HARRIS: Well, I -- well no, no, no, no. I want her happy. I love the music. I want her happy. Guys, she's spoken for, it seems. Christina Aguilera gets a step closer to tying the knot. We'll tell you who's ring she is sporting.

NGUYEN: And ruling with an iron hand. That is getting some current leaders a dubious distinction. We will dictate those details straight ahead, right here on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: We're less than an hour now before the final uncertified results of the Iraqi elections are expected to be made public. And welcome back, everyone, to CNN SUNDAY MORNING. I'm Tony Harris.

NGUYEN: And I'm Betty Nguyen. We'll have that story in just a moment. But first, here's a look at these headlines today.

As mentioned, in just about 30 minutes from now, election officials in Iraq are expected to announce the results of that country's historic nationwide elections just two weeks ago. The results will not be certified, however. Political parties have three days to file formal challenges.

Now no major surprises are expected. The Shiites are expected to retain majority power while the rest of Sunni Arab minority will likely be marginalized.

In Madrid, Spain, terrorism is not suspected in what is being called the worst fire in the city's history. Look at this video. Flames engulf this 32-story landmark building in the city's financial district. Firefighters were able to contain that blaze from spreading, which is good news. And electrical short is suspected of causing that blaze.

Well, just about 90 minutes ago, Pope John Paul II made his first public appearance since being released from the hospital. The frail 84-year old pontiff led this morning's weekly prayer. And he was released from the hospital, as you remember, on Thursday, nine days after being rushed there with breathing problems.

Iran says it will not shut down its nuclear research program, but maintains the project will be peaceful. Iran says -- has also warned that the U.S. attacking against those facility -- it's warning against those attacks. Washington, which accused Tehran of pursuing nuclear weapons, has not ruled out any measure, including use of force.

We are keeping you informed. CNN, the most trusted name in news.

HARRIS: It is the big question in Iraq this morning. Who did they vote for? Jane Arraf reports from Tikrit. And Jane, I've got to tell you, much of the thunder has been stolen from this day by the release of the preliminary results, but it still feels like a big deal today.

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's -- absolutely. It's been a huge day.

Now again, we have to emphasize that these are results that can be contested for the next three days. So while no surprise, it appears that the Shia are back, which is actually a list backed by the Ayatollah Ali Sistani, perhaps the most revered figure in Iraq, a Shia cleric.

There will be a lot of power sharing going on. The current will have made major gains. The Sunnis appear to have been to some extent shut out.

And here in Tikrit in Saddam's hometown, where we are, there were not a huge number of people who went out to vote, Tony. Preliminary results indicate perhaps 30 percent of registered voters came out here -- Tony?

HARRIS: Jane, put a fine point on this, finer than maybe we've known to this point. To what extent was the U.S. military involved in these elections?

ARRAF: Well, this was supposed to be (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the Iraqi election. And the Iraqi officials went to great pains to say the military would not be involved in any way. They wouldn't touch the ballot boxes. They wouldn't be anywhere near the polling stations.

But in fact, in places like this, and some of them are in remote communities, there really wasn't anyone else to do a lot of the organizing, a lot of the preparation work.

And the military found themselves doing a lot of that. Now cases of ballot boxes -- being short of ballot boxes, where they were being sealed in grain shacks for instance. There was a lot of improvisation going on.

Remarkable that it happened at all. And according to many Iraqis, remarkable that it happened with so little violence relatively -- Tony?

HARRIS: Yes, Jane. I mean, I guess there just could have been expected the first free elections years now. Jane Arraf reporting from Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit this morning. Thank you, Jane.

NGUYEN: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Since that was first said more than a century ago, it has been proven time and time again. In fact, today, many of us will open our newspapers this morning to find a list of the worst dictators now in power.

And according to that list, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan is the worst of the worst. He's followed by Kim Jong Il of North Korea, Than Shwe of Burma, the country now known as Myanmar, and Hu Jintao of China, along with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

The cases for each can be found in today's "Parade" magazine. And its contributing editor David Wallechinsky joins us now from Los Angeles with much more on this list.

Good morning to you.

DAVID WALLECHINSKY, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, PARADE: Good morning.

NGUYEN: Well, first of all, tell us what criteria you used to create this list of yours?

WALLECHINSKY: The basics of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the ability to choose your own leaders. And then, I kind of used as a tie breaker if a citizen of a country stood on the street corner and told somebody they thought the leader was not doing right, what would happen to that person?

NGUYEN: I see. All right, so Sudan's leader has really bumped Kim Jong Il of North Korea out of that top spot. What is that?

WALLECHINSKY: Well, because he's been killing people in Darfur. We read a lot about, and see a lot on television, about the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. 70,000 people dead. Two billion uprooted.

And we tend to forget that there's somebody behind these actions. And that is Omar al-Bashir, who's already done the same thing in the south of Sudan.

NGUYEN: I see. All right, if we can put that list back up just for a moment. I want to focus on the -- look at that list one more time, because number three on that list is a name that some people may not be too familiar with. And you say that is because the case in that country, which is now named Myanmar, used to be Burma, is something that's been under reported, correct?

WALLECHINSKY: Yes, exactly. I mean, Burma really doesn't have any resources that we need. It doesn't have an interesting location. And so we tend to forget about Burma.

But they have one-quarter of all child soldiers in the world are in Burma. And the Burmese government, in an attempt to clean out various ethnic groups, has destroyed almost 3,000 villages.

NGUYEN: You know, I was surprised to see Crown Prince Abdullah number five on your list. Isn't Saudi Arabia a good ally or at least an ally for the U.S. in the war on terror?

WALLECHINSKY: That may be the case. Of course, 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis.

But even if they are an ally in terror, that doesn't mean that it isn't a dictatorial government. You may have noticed a few days ago that there was an election, municipal elections. First elections in the country in 40 years. In reality, of course, women weren't allowed to vote. Second, these elections were only for half the seats in the municipal councils. The other half are appointed by the royal family of Saudi Arabia, who will also point the mayors of each city, which means that the elections meant nothing.

NGUYEN: Now you bumped up Gadhafi on this list. Last year, he wasn't even a top 10. Why did you bump him up?

WALLECHINSKY: Well, you know, he's made his peace with the West. And you know, we want his oil. And so, you know, he's OK now by the west. But because he made his peace with the west, and the west is no longer hassling him, he was able to crack down even harder on his own people.

For example, he has what's known as "collective guilt." If he doesn't like something that somebody's done, he can punish the entire family or even an entire village or town.

NGUYEN: I see. And something else that surprised me about your list. Fidel Castro. Not even in the top 10?

WALLECHINSKY: Yes, he slipped down to number 12. Not by -- and not by any improvement by any means. He didn't do anything right or didn't get any better. It's just that others got worse.

NGUYEN: I see. All right, very interesting list. David Wallechinsky, contributing editor of "Parade," we thank you for your insight today.

WALLECHINSKY: Thank you.

HARRIS: Well, practice makes perfect, especially when it comes to performing for the Grammys. Nominees like John Mayor are tuning up and checking their mikes. A preview of one of music's biggest nights from CNN.com straight ahead on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

NGUYEN: And good morning, Boston. Boy, look at that sun out there. Orelon Sydney has the forecast for you and the rest of the nation. That's in about 20 minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: And time now to fast forward for a quick look at some of the stories we'll be following this week. Beginning Wednesday, dozens of scientists. Doctors and patients will weigh in on a broad scale review of a particular class of painkillers.

The drugs known as Cox II inhibitors have come under intense scrutiny for possibly causing heart attacks. The Food and Drug Administration will hold three days of meetings on whether they should remain on the market.

And Thursday, Iraq will close its borders to prevent Shiite pilgrims from entering the country. The government says it's the latest attempt to stop insurgent attacks. And next Saturday, former Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush will visit the country's hit by the tsunami in December. Both have been tapped to lead a U.S. fund-raising drive to help tsunami victims.

NGUYEN: All right, Grammy gold is at stake tonight for the 47th Annual Grammy Awards. Christina Park is here from the cnn.com desk to tell us about music's highest honor.

And I guess, Christina, if you haven't heard of Kanye West...

CHRISTINA PARK, CNN.COM: Oh, yes.

NGUYEN: ...you will tonight.

PARK: He's leading the nominees with 10 nominations. And he also faces artists like Usher, Alicia Keys are up with...

NGUYEN: Competition.

PARK: Yes, eight nominations each. And we've got the scoop on who might have the Midas touch this year. At cnn.com, you can hit a gold mine of behind the music news.

For instance, did you know that Usher's song "Yeah" started out as a "No." It's up for three Grammys, including record of the year. But the world may have never heard the hit featuring Ludacris and Little John because some didn't believe the collaboration would work. Thanks to the songwriter who never gave up, the record blew up the charts. And as you know, it's up for music's highest honors.

You'll find more music hits and misses on cnn.com. All you have to do is click through our gallery to see which of your favorite artists made the cut. Music buffs can also click through our list of past winners, browse the list of nominees up for best record album, song, new artist, pop vocal rap, even country awards from groups like Maroon 5 to the late Ray Charles, cnn.com is your date to the 47th Annual Grammys.

Are you watching?

NGUYEN: I will be watching. And J. Lo and her husband, although we can't tell anybody that's her husband, will be performing together tonight?

PARK: I believe so.

NGUYEN: All right.

PARK: I'll be watching for Kanye West.

NGUYEN: Yes, he's probably going to...

PARK: He's the man to watch.

NGUYEN: ...quite a few awards. All right. Speaking of entertainment news, Grammy winners, what this girl wants is apparently a husband. We are talking about Christina Aguilera. She is reportedly engaged to boyfriend of two years music executive Jordan Bradman. Representatives for the couple say Bradman popped the question to the pop singer last night. We don't know exactly how, but he did put a big rock on the rock star's finger. No plans on where and when just yet.

HARRIS: And checking our top stories in about 15 minutes. Iraq is due to announce the uncertified results from last month's election. After three days, the election results will be certified as long as no objections about the count are upheld.

Pope John Paul II was back at his apartment window today delivering his weekly blessing. The event -- his followers for their prayers while he was hospitalized with breathing problems.

A massive fire devours a 32-story skyscraper in Madrid's financial district. The blaze burned all night. And firefighters fear the building will collapse. Authorities don't believe anyone was inside. Three firefighters have suffered smoke inhalation. There is no cause yet.

The Iraqi election commission is expected to announce final uncertified results from last month's elections in the next hour. We'll carry it live from the Baghdad Convention Center on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

But up next, his bravery earned him a bronze star and nearly cost him his life. Another chapter in our hero series ahead on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

NGUYEN: And here's a CNN extra. AirTran Airways this week became the first commercial airline in the world to offer complimentary XM satellite radio service on its flights. The service provides more than 100 channels and free music sports news and entertainment. And of course, you don't need to be airborne to listen to XM. The company has exclusive deals with GM and Honda.

Now its competitor, Sirius Satellite Radio, is installing its services in Ford and Daimler Chrysler vehicles.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Soul man. Soul man this morning. Now we're starting to get it. Now we're starting to understand the music in the program.

Good morning, Boston. Some NBA action going down at the Fleet Center today, as the Celtics face off against the Sacramento Kings. Your weather forecast with Orelon Sydney in about seven minutes.

NGUYEN: Nice beat on a Sunday. Get your right into the day. All right, in our heroes segment this morning, we pay tribute to Sergeant Bruce Himelright. He's been awarded a bronze star for bravery in an ambush in Iraq that nearly cost him his life.

CNN's Casey Wian has his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the National Guard armory in Chico, California, Sergeant Bruce Himelright is working off the last six months of his military career. He joined the Navy seven years ago doing active duty on a nuclear sub. After he left, life as a security guard wasn't enough, so he joined the army National Guard, a move that took him to Iraq and army honors for bravery.

SGT. BRUCE HIMELRIGHT, CALIFORNIA NATIONAL GUARD: To me it's just a soldier who is in a position where you want to survive and you want your friends survive and what else are you going to do?

WIAN: The day began like any other until a routine patrol turned deadly. Shots rang out. Himelright could feel he had been hit.

HIMELRIGHT: Once I realized I was being shot, I was able to stand up and there was an Iraqi interpreter right beside me, I was able to grab him with both arms and we jumped into a canal. Two seconds passed and I was in the bottom of the canal face-down. And I had my .16 in my hand and I looked down and I had blood all over the left side of my body. When I rolled over there was a silhouette on top of the canal and then they started shooting me in the chest as well.

WIAN: As the bullets flew Sergeant Himelright worried about his fellow soldiers.

HIMELRIGHT: I was able to actually stand up, because I only had one shot through my buttocks, left buttocks and my body armor had stopped all the other rounds. So I was very lucky.

WIAN: Himelright quickly saw two of his buddies were down. Even though he was bleeding, he crawled to the radio to call for help. When the ambulance arrived he helped move the wounded soldiers. In spite of his efforts, their lives were lost. Months later, Himelright's bravery is rewarded with a Bronze Star.

With his military career now coming to a permanent close, Sergeant Himelright plans to fulfill another lifelong goal -- becoming a police officer.

Casey Wian, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: And we bring you heroes stories every week right here on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

HARRIS: And we are expecting an announcement from the Iraqi election commission in the next hour. There you see a live picture of the Baghdad Convention Center. We will take you inside that room for the results next hour on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Oh, the voice, the hair, the legs as Tony was saying. Tina Turner for the best charting album in her career. "All The Best." Of course, that's what it's called. Opened this week at the number two spot. It's over two decades of her recordings. It includes three new tracks.

And the diva is just behind "The Game's" new release. The documentary, it is back at number one this week. Green Day's "American Idiot" is number three. Last week's winner Kenny Chesney dropped down to number. And John Legend's "Get Lifted" leaps into number five.

HARRIS: And one group that's long been comfortable on the music charts is rock superstar Led Zeppelin. That group full of superstars. They were honored with the lifetime achievement Grammy at a pre awards show celebration last night in Los Angeles. They're in their 12 years together, the popular British band from the 1970s never won a Grammy. Superstar guitarist Jimmy Page, one of the best ever, and guitarist, keyboardist, John Hall Jones were on hand to accept the awards.

NGUYEN: Hey, speaking of music, you see them everywhere. Millions of people hooked up to that little white electronic device. Who are these people and how do they fill their seemingly inexhaustible Ipods?

Well, CNN's Tom Foreman takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To grab hold of the hottest selling consumer gadget on the planet, you must move fast. A polished beautiful and some would say downright sexy Ipod is sold every two seconds.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's sleek, it's modern.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's small and it has a lot of music.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It really, really is (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have sold now over 10 million Ipods. Hard to walk down any street now and not see white headphones coming out of people's ears.

FOREMAN: On the surface, this darling of the tech world is simply a hyper charged music machine, a portable computer hard drive capable of recording and playing 10,000 songs, 21 days of non-stop music.

(on camera): The problem is unless you're a radio station, you don't own that much music. So the rapidly expanding cult of pod is coming up with all sorts of ideas about what to do with that extra space.

(voice-over): At the Brearley School in New York, students study foreign languages on Ipods. Now they can hear any time how they sound compared to a native speaker of French or Chinese. HALLEH BALCH, 9th GRADER: And that helps us with like hearing other people speak and hearing how we're supposed to be pronouncing things.

STEPHANIE HULL, THE BREARLEY SCHOOL: We would love to use it more for the history department. There are quite a few applications in the sciences. I can see this extending to many other departments in the coming years.

FOREMAN: The applications go on. Catherine Cornelius is an artist, buying an Ipod with photo storing capabilities.

CATHERINE CORNELIUS: Easy for me to have my portfolio on that, while I'm, you know, who knows who I can run into and show my work to?

FOREMAN: And on Internet sites, such as Podcastalley,com, you can find hundreds of audio shows recorded by amateur podcasters, to be downloaded and listened to on Ipods. Music shows, movie reviews...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I picked it up on DVD the other day. And I just cannot get this film out of my head. So I watched it again today.

FOREMAN: And the first podcasting hit, "The Dawn and Drew Show." The often risque talk of a real couple in Wisconsin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So Christy, we wanted to talk to about what it was like to be in jail.

FOREMAN: All this has spurred the creation of 400 accessories for the little Ipod, who compels his followers to buy, buy, buy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But I enjoy every single feature. I never have a problem with it.

FOREMAN: Critics complain that the rechargeable battery must be replaced by a technician. Competitors say their mock pods offer better sound quality. But everyone watching the tech business knows little pod sets the pace.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Basically if you want to compete with Apple on this thing now, you've got have an Ipod knock-off. You can't do something much different. So it's changed the world that way.

FOREMAN: In 1956's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," space aliens took over people's bodies and minds using giant seed pods. The victims looked the same as they always did. They were just different.

And so it is with modern pod people. You may not know it, but they are among us. They are everywhere. And their numbers are growing.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE) HARRIS: A little frightening.

NGUYEN: Yes. And I'm still waiting for my Ipod. I need to go out and get one. You have one?

HARRIS: No, I don't. I don't. I don't. No, no. And that many have been sold? It's amazing.

NGUYEN: Oh, yes, it's huge.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HARRIS: Let's switch quickly now to our e-mail question of the morning. And we're asking about the best case scenario for Iraq. And there's the address wam@cnn.com. And this first e-mail comes from Vicki.

"The Iraqi people tell us to leave," I should set it up. The best case scenario according to Vicki is this, "The Iraqi people tell us to leave and my soldier son returns to college. Praying for peaceful solutions."

NGUYEN: Well Dave in Michigan says "The best-case scenario for Iraq would be this: A free society, free of United States influence, unique in the world and safe to visit."

And of course we invite you to continue sending those responses in to our questions. What's the best case scenario for Iraq? E-mail us at wam@cnn.com.

HARRIS: And the next hour of CNN SUNDAY MORNING begins right now.

And from the CNN Center this is CNN SUNDAY MORNING. It is February 13th, 8 a.m. at the CNN headquarters in Atlanta and 5 a.m. on the west coast.

It is 4 p.m. in Iraq. This hour in Baghdad, the uncertified results of the January 30th election revealed. You're looking live now at the hall where those results will be announced.

Good morning everyone. I'm Tony Harris.

NGUYEN: And I'm Betty Nguyen. Thanks so much for being with us today.

Well we want to give you a live picture again of that Baghdad convention center where test results of Iraq's historic national election are being announced this morning. There it is. Live reports on several different angles of this story. That is coming up in just a minute.

Meanwhile, a vow from Iran this morning. The nation says it won't shut down its disputed nuclear research program, which has sparked tensions with the U.S. Iran is also rejecting a European offer aimed at limiting its nuclear activities. A foreign minister spokesman warns the U.S. against quote, "playing with fire."

Speaking of fire, it is still burning. Fire fighters in Madrid Spain are still battling a blaze that broke out last night at a 32 story office building. Now several fire fighters suffered smoke inhalation. That blaze gutted the upper floors sparking fears that the whole building could fall. Fire fighters think a short circuit may be to blame.

And the pope is back. A sea of worshipers broke out into applause at the Vatican this morning as John Paul II gave his Sunday blessing. The pope returned to his window pulpit for the first time since being hospitalized with a throat infection.

HARRIS: From Washington to Baghdad CNN brings you full coverage of the Iraqi election results this morning. For the latest on vote counts and a look ahead we go to Nick Robertson in Baghdad, Jane Arraf in Tikrit and Dana Bash in Washington.

But first, let's bring you up to date. The Iraqi people went to the polls on January 30th. It was Iraq's first free election in more than half a century. Officials reported a high turn out. They say about 72 percent of the more than 9.6 million registered voters cast ballots.

No stamp of approval just yet. It will be three days until the morning's results are certified.. Political parties have that much time to file any objections.

NGUYEN: Well about 20 percent of Iraq's population the Sunni Arabs will have almost no representation in this new government. And CNN's Jane Arraf is in the heart of the Sunni triangle. She joins us live from Tikrit. Good morning to you.

ARRAF: Good morning. As we mentioned, there are quite a lot of people in this country, in this region in particular, basically the heart of this Sunni triangle that didn't go out and vote. In fact, if you look at the preliminary figures about 30 percent of registered voters went out. And that's compared to 90 percent in some other areas.

So whatever the results are there is going to be a large problem here expected to be addressed by deals going on in back rooms in Baghdad, in the provinces and major cities and villages as to how to get Sunnis to participate even though the didn't go out and vote in huge numbers.

NGUYEN: So Jane let's talk about these uncertified election results. You say that once they are announced it could cause some deals to be made. Now what about those who are elected with these votes? Do you think they will have a hard time, especially with the Sunnis with their legitimacy in this new government?

ARRAF: They'll have a hard time with their constituents. There are a lot of people who are -- who feel like they've been shut out of this process. They feel like they've been shut out of this new Iraq entirely. And a lot of those people happen to be centered in this province.

We're standing now in Saddam's former palace, Saddam Hussein's former palace now a U.S. military base called (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And there are still quite a lot of people who supported the Baath party, Baath party officials, Baath party sympathizers, not necessarily insurgents who believe they didn't have anyone to vote for.

It's going to be a real challenge, but certainly Shiite politicians, Kurdish politicians have made the right noises. They've said they understand there is a problem and they are reaching out to Sunni leaders to try to incorporate them.

NGUYEN: And Jane, as those numbers are going to be announced again, these are uncertified numbers that will be announced within minutes this morning. As the Sunnis look at these numbers and who will be holding power, are they also wondering if they really didn't partake in this election and that was to their fault and because of that they are not going to have the kind of representation that they would like?

ARRAF: It is a concern. Because a big concern really is that the riff could widen here. That this could become a country which in fact, does break up. Not just because of the continues attacks Shiites, Sunnis but because people feel like they are not part of something called Iraq and that is one of the big problems, one of the big challenges.

Now we wanted a chance to go out to polling stations in the city of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad on election and there was absolute joy at those polling stations as people went out and voted. And those were Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish, Turkoman, all of the ethnic groups that make up this incredible mosaic that is Iraq and could be Iraq.

But there are a lot of other people who didn't go out and vote because they felt simply that they don't have a take, they don't have a role in This process.

NGUYEN: We'll see how the vote shakes out today. All right, CNN's Jane Arraf we appreciate you coming to us from Tikrit today. Thank you.

Tony.

HARRIS: Let's, Betty, take that live picture once again. As we've been mentioning all morning long, the Iraqi election commission is expected to announce final uncertified results from last month's election in just a couple of minutes.

The guy at the podium has come out of the wings a couple of times in the last couple of minutes to announce it seems a tick-tock as to when we will actually hear the results and folks will begin to make their way tot he podium informing reporters there who are gathered, as you can see. We'll continue to watch this picture and monitor it and as soon as we see the spokes people from the Iraqi election commission come forward we will take you to the Baghdad convention center live.

So what is the White House take on Iraq's election results? We're joined now by White House correspondent Dana Bash.

Good morning, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Tony. Well at the White House they are not expecting very many surprises. As you just heard from Jane Arraf, the expectation is that the majority of those election with be Shiites. That is of course, because of the fact that many Sunnis did not vote and because that is proportionate to the country itself in Iraq.

But they certainly are, Tony, going to be looking for -- asking some questions at the White House. First of all, what this will mean ultimately for the government. You're likely to hear a little bit of caution from the White House, just as we heard after the elections took place, that this is just a first step. Well, this is just another step, that you're likely to hear them say, in the long process of getting a government together.

But they will be looking to figure out how those back room deals that Jane Arraf was talking about, how those are going to shake out. They're -- they walk a fine line at the White House because they don't want to make this look like an American process.

They don't want America's finger prints overtly over this. But they also want to try to guide this so that it doesn't end up, as again Jane was saying, as a fear there that this could be faction, that there could be any civil war or anything of the sort..

So they are certainly watching this to see those question. Also to see whether or not there are questions about the U.S. troops, what will happen there. We see that somebody has come to the podium so, let's listen.

FARID AYAR, BCI SPOKESMAN (through translator): Dear brothers and sisters and colleagues today Iraq is taking a new step toward the horizon of democracy, the very wide horizon. A step in which the Iraqi people are giving an example for the practice for the first time of a real Arab true Democratic experience.

This -- these people who were able to teach the world in 10 days from the 30th of the -- last month that they are able to close all the wounds. That they are capable to be a model for the people of the area.

Today this is a new birth for Iraq, a free Iraq and free people who aim to build a state based on civilized values and Democratic values and the principles of peace and love.

I don't want to take any further time, but I want to talk about the delay in announcing the results. The goal of the higher commission was to confirm everything in order to have accurate numbers and true numbers and transparent numbers.

The thinking of the commission was focused on accuracy and not on the time, despite the importance of time. But today the commission, the higher commission is pleased to present to the Iraqi people and to those who participated in the election and those who did not participate the unapproved results of the election on the 30th of January, 2005, which are the elections that people did their best and were very creative. They became a legend in their confrontation with the terrorists and they went to the voting polls standing tall.

Now my colleague Mr. Aqil Al Lami will give you some of the results, final results for the governance, remaining governance. We have announced some results previously.

AQIL AL LAMI, ELECTORAL ADMIN. GENERAL DIRECTOR: Good evening. The results of the election of the council of the Nenovah province governorate, the Independent Iraqi Entity received 2,607 votes. The Gathering of the Iraqi Unity, 3,980 votes. The Coalition of the Two Rivers, the Democratic Coalition, 2,850 votes.

The Democratic Kurdistani list received 109,295 votes. The National Front for the Unity of Iraq received 2,992 votes. The Turkoman of Iraq Front, the council of the tribes, Unified Tribes of Mosul, 6,624 votes.

The Rafinin (ph) -- national Rafinin list, 4,650 votes. The Party of Democratic Building, 560 votes. The Communist Iraqi Party, 1,040 votes. The Unified Democratic Syrian Coalition Party, 750 votes.

The Conciliation of Liberation, 3,250 votes. The Higher Council for Islamic Revolution, 19,255 votes. The Society of the Leaders of Tribes, 903 votes. The Islamic Iraqi Party, 7,065 votes. The Kurdish Party, 755.

The total number of votes in the governorate, 165,934 votes. The number of the invalid ballot box tickets, 8,064 ballots.

Now the province or the governorate of Erbil. The National Kurdistani Union with 240,333. The Democratic Movement of Kurdistan, 1,437. The Socialist Democratic Party of Kurdistan, 1,437. The Islamic Union of Kurdistan, 22,523. The Zahma (ph) Party of Kurdistan, 4,442. The Turkoman Front of Iraq, 3,284. The Democratic Movement of Kurdistan, 687. The list of the Two Rivers, Rafideh (ph), the Democratic Party of Kadil (ph), 647. The Kurdistani Group of Iraq, 18,781. The Party of the Kurdistan Conservatives, 1,300 votes, 347,072.

The elections of the council of Kirkuk. The National Brotherhood Party, 636. The Gathering of the National Unity, Iraqi National Unity, 1,590. The Front of Joint Work Democratic, 181. The National Front (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Iraq 880 votes.

The Gathering for Iraqi Democracy, 390 votes. The Arab United Front, 4,064 votes. The Front of the Turkomans of Iraq, 73,791 votes. The National Movement, Turkomani Movement, 1,851 votes.

The Islamic of Turkomani Coalition, 12,678 votes. The Dawa, Islamic Dawa Party, 1,220. The list of the Two Rivers Rafideh (ph), 1,554. The Party of Democratic Construction, 914. The Democratic Kadil (ph) Party, 536. The Islamic Democratic Party, 333 votes. The Party of the Democratic Solution, 554 votes.

The Islamic Kurdistani Group of Iraq, 2,325 votes. The National Iraqi Assembly, 12,329 votes. The Republic Gathering, Iraqi Gathering, 43,635. The Reconciliation and Liberation Block, 1,133. The Party of the Free Republic, 135 votes. The Union of (UNINTELLIGIBLE), 708 votes.

The Islamic Iraqi Party, 594 votes. The Party of Kurdistani Conservatives, 1,558 votes. The list of the Brotherhood of Kirkuk, 237,303 votes.

The total votes in Kirkuk is 400,392 votes, and the number of invalid ballots, 5,059 ballots.

The governorate of Salaheddin. The Independent Entity, 1,336. The coalition -- Democratic Coalition Unified, 22,160. Islamic Democratic Movement, 1,742. The Iraqi Commission for the Civil Societies, 154 votes. The gathering -- Royal Gathering of Hashemite Iraqi, 1,256. The Gathering of the National Unity, 13,321.

The Shiite Council, 2,530. The National Front for the Unity of Iraq, 378. The Arab Unified Front, 146 votes. The Front of the Turkomans in Iraq, 14,917. The National Movement, Turkomani Movement, 540. The Gathering of Independents of Salaheddin, 4,739 votes.

The National Resali (ph) list, 6,133. The Unified List, 12,815. Independent List, 1,336. The Communist Iraqi Party, 2,409. The National Democratic Free Party under the leadership of Zaib Hasani (ph), 180 votes. The National Coalition Democratic Parties, 1,904. The Dawa list Nabia (ph), 8,691. The National Coalition, 1,224.

The National Gathering, Iraqi Gathering, 10,215. The Republican Gathering, 908. The Block of Reconciliation and Liberation, 17,017. The Movement of National Consensus is 8,641. The National Iraqi Movement, 159. Islamic Iraqi Party, 3,025. Total votes in Salaheddin, 137,476. The number of invalid ballots, 1,834.

The results of the Basra. The Democratic Movement, 4,431. The Organization of Islamic Work in Iraq, 3,997. The Gathering of Democratic Iraqis, 9,628. The Islamic Movement Democratic, 7,728. The Iraqi Commission for the Civil Societies, Independent Civil Societies, 7,525.

The Gathering -- Royal Gathering of Hashemite, 5,381. The Party of Islamic Unity, 6,050. The Gathering of National Iraqi Unity, 7,898. The Islamic Conference for the Tribes of Iraq, 11,306. The Shiite Political Council, 12,098. The Front of Common Work or (UNINTELLIGIBLE) work, Democratic, 4,773.

The National Front for the Unity of Iraq, 2,959. The Gathering for Democracy, Iraqi Democracy, 7,162. The Gathering of Iraq in the Future, 21,236. Hatiabdelaman Abdelavishari (ph), 2,381. The Dawa Movement Parties, 37,997.

The Resali (ph) national list, 3,631. The Democratic Building Party, 2,265. The National Party Democratic... HARRIS: We are watching the reading of the results from the election. Now we want to remind you that these are uncertified. These results are being read by the independent Iraqi election commission from the convention center in Baghdad and it's going to take a while, Octavia Nasr, CNN's senior editor for Arab affairs.

We're talking about 18 provinces that we're going to work through. So this is going to be a lengthy process today.

OCTAVIA NASR, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Right. And they're listing everything and it seems that the Iraqis are really taking pride in listing every province and listing every party, every coalition. The numbers...

HARRIS: It makes sense.

NASR: It makes sense. And you heard in the beginning of the presentation the official from the electoral commission. He's saying this is, you know, Iraqis are teaching other Arabs a lesson in democracy. They're taking a lot of pride in this.

HARRIS: A pride filled day.

NASR: Right. They're going to take their time. They're going to enjoy and they're going to give us the results one vote at a time, it seems like.

NGUYEN: Exactly, and they're going through all the different provinces. But as we're listening to this a lot of people have been looking at the numbers ahead of time and just at least from those -- the counts that they're projecting, what are we looking at as to whose going to take the number one spot at this point?

NASR: It seems like -- I mean we go by what Arab media reports are saying. I mean they're very close to the counting. They're very close to the officials. What they've been predicting even from day one, from the election day, they've been predicting that the Shiite are going to win the most votes, the majority of votes and then it was going to be a question as to where the Kurds are going to come in this equation.

The papers yesterday and this morning are saying that the Kurds are going to be getting number two number of votes and then the Prime Minister Allawi. So first Shia, which was expected...

HARRIS: That was...

NASR: The surprise is the Kurds really.

HARRIS: Exactly. And you're absolutely right. This result is not going to surprise a lot of people. Dana Bash, our white House correspondent, was mentioning it. The White House understands how this will likely play out. The Shia endorsed this process early on.

They endorsed the elections. The grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani wanted these elections sooner not later understanding that this was an opportunity, am I correct here, to capture power long denied by the Sunnis.

NASR: That's exactly what happened and that's...

HARRIS: Did I sum it up OK?

NASR: You did a good job. You did a good job. You know the Shia were oppressed under Saddam Hussein for so many years. They had no voice. They had no power. And what Arab experts have been saying, they've been saying why were people surprised that the Shia would do so well in these elections.

Well this is their opportunity, as you said, this is their opportunity to go and cast their ballot and to play a major role in the future of Iraq. What some people, the critics were saying...

HARRIS: And they're out there.

NASR: Absolutely they're out. And what they're saying, they're saying look this was not a democratic process when only the Shia get to vote whereas the Sunnis are not voting. Then you have another group saying well, the Sunnis could have voted, but it was their choice to boycott the elections and then it was...

HARRIS; Yes, but they were being threatened and harassed and harassed and threatened by the insurgency by any number of groups. We talk about Zarqawi's group all the time, but you right pointed out for a long time now that it's not just Zarqawi there were a number of groups out there that were threatening folks in that region, in the so-called Sunni tribe.

NGUYEN: But do you think as they're watching this today, that they're stepping back and saying to themselves we should have went out to vote? We have lost some seats because we didn't get out to vote.

NASR: Well, again by checking the media and checking their statements, you know, the Sunni clerics have been very vocal about these elections. They said that they did not believe that they were democratic. They said...

HARRIS: Or legitimate, yes...

NASR: They said that they are going to embrace, they are going to work with the new government. It doesn't matter who it's going to be the head of this government they're going to work with them. But they do not believe that this was a democratic process because what they were saying is what Tony was saying, it was very dangerous to conduct this vote. And they were saying why don't we postpone a little bit.

And since the postponement was not even in the picture they decided to pull out. Now the danger to the voters is very real. Voters did not go out and vote because there were a lot of threats and there was a lot of violence around election day.

But that really doesn't reflect positively on the candidates.

HARRIS: Yes.

NASR: People are saying, people in Iraq and elsewhere are saying the candidates should have stayed on They should have kept their names on the ballot. They should have went on with it because that would have encouraged more Sunnis to go out and vote.

So it's one of those complicated things, which have a tendency of complicating things on the ground later. If the Sunnis don't get what they want later on there is talk on Arab media of the possibility of even a civil war at this point.

HARRIS: OK. I want to get to that in a moment, but let's backtrack this just a little bit because you've been very good a reminding us that in watching the Arab media that the Arab media was at times skeptical of the process. But I remember you being here on election day and bringing us some of what you had been finding on the Web sites that day and the day before in that the election process ultimately was being endorsed.

NASR: Right. Arab media was very skeptical about this whole process. You know they haven't been very -- in favor of the U.S. presence in Iraq.

HARRIS: Yes.

NASR: ...the coalition presence in Iraq. So leading up to elections that were very skeptical. They were saying the elections are not going to take place. There would be a lot of violence and so forth. So yes, on election day they embraced it. They saw the results. They couldn't -- people were saying this is the purple ink election.

HARRIS: Yes, yes.

NASR: It proves that elections did take place and that it was a democratic process. And it was something for the Arab media to enjoy sort of, you know. Now the question is going to be the results. How are these results going to effect things on the ground.

HARRIS: Moving forward.

NASR: And the elements...

NGUYEN: Who's going to get which spot when it comes to president?

HARRIS: Don't go anywhere. Stay here Octavia. Don't go anywhere.

NGUYEN: Exactly. We're going to continue our coverage of this. In fact we are going to be preempting "HOUSE CALL" with doctor Sanjay Gupta, as we continue our live coverage of the Iraqi uncertified election results.

We're going to take a quick break right now and come back live with all of that. Stay tuned. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Boy that's a good question, Iraq next chapter. We are continuing to follow the reporting of the election results from the historic Baghdad and Iraq elections two weeks ago throughout that entire country.

We are getting some very interesting figures, 8.55 million votes cast in that election two weeks ago and that is a wonderful figure. Many, many Iraqis went out to vote. Most of the population that was eligible to vote actually did participate.

We will continue to follow this and monitor the vote count throughout the morning.

NGUYEN: But in the meantime we want to go live now to Baghdad for senior international correspondent Nic Robertson, who is standing by as he is listening to all the numbers being presented today.

Hi, Nic.

ROBERTSON: Hi there, Betty. Well, what we're hearing so far, of course, are these results coming in with the different provincial parties, not the big blocks that were at play for the national elections. But what we can see is if you look at what we were listening to earlier, Salaheddin -- the hometown of Saddam Hussein, Tikrit is in Salaheddin province -- and if you just look at the overall total numbers, about 137,000 people came out to vote -- to vote. This was -- this is a majority Sunni province. The numbers are really down compared to some of the other provinces we have been hearing from -- 400,000 in another northern province. Many more in the south, in Basra.

So again, I think what we're seeing is an affirmation of the suspicions that in those Sunni-dominated provinces, the figures would be down.

8.55 million, perhaps getting up towards 60 percent of the total electorate, but of course we haven't been given a final figure of the electorate. We always knew, or we'd known from the provisional figures, very high turnout in the south. High again in the north, where the Kurdish areas were. But it seems to me this central Sunni triangle, the low turnout there that is beginning to show in these early figures dragging that overall national average of turnout down a little, Betty.

NGUYEN: Nic, so what kind of deals are going to be made? Jane Arraf spoke earlier about deals being made so that Sunnis can come into some kind of power in this new government. With this low turnout, which we're seeing today, with the numbers that are being presented, what kind of deals are being made so they can have a spot in this new government?

ROBERTSON: Well, really, the strongest political party at this time, United Iraqi Alliance, its leading politicians have already been in closed-door meetings with some of the leading Sunni politicians, and that is because those politicians, the Sunni politicians, want to get involved in the drafting of the constitution for Iraq. This is going to be a permanent document that is going to enshrine the laws for the future of the country, until such time as they change it again. So there is an element that is realizing that they've missed an opportunity by not taking part in the elections, and they are trying to get on board with the process, and of course this is the big test, if you will. Will this disenfranchise the Sunnis, or will they realize that they've made a mistake and get involved? And the early indications are some of the influential figures, the Association of Muslim Scholars, are getting involved, and perhaps for those that want to see the Sunnis get involved in the electoral process, that's a very good indication for them, Betty.

NGUYEN: Speaking of getting involved, those numbers again are really kind of staggering. 8.55 million Iraqis cast their vote in this election. Some 9.6 million eligible to vote. So that's large number. What does that say about the legitimacy of this new government? Do they really have a large backing, considering the number of people who actually came out to take part in this election?

ROBERTSON: That was very clear on election day, that the figures -- that the numbers of people coming out through the day really came up through the day, and particularly in some of those areas where terrorism and the threat of violence had really weighed heavily on people's minds. The voting figures really came up. The number of people coming out through the day really came up, and this really answered for a lot of people here the question of legitimacy of the government. If so many people came out, therefore this is a more legitimate -- therefore the government is more legitimate.

Really, the questions are being asked that you would see perhaps in some of the minority communities. We've seen the Turkoman demonstrating saying that they are not getting a full representation. They're perhaps 1 to 2 percent of the total population in the country. And that element of, again, of Sunnis. Do they feel disenfranchised?

But the indication is -- is that because the numbers were high, this adds a greater level of legitimacy, and that's what the Iraqis here are saying. And I talked to Sunnis here who voted in the elections. They wanted more people to vote in their communities. They understood why they hadn't, but they believe that it was important, and that does seem to be the prevailing view -- Betty.

NGUYEN: Nic, there's going to be three days to certify these uncertified votes right now, which are being announced as we speak. But there were some concerns, because some 300 ballot boxes had to be recounted in this election. Do you think these will be certified within three days, or are we going to see some objections to these results?

ROBERTSON: I think the deductions from the questionable ballot boxes have already been made. There were 40 cases -- or 40 ballot boxes that were disallowed by the electoral commission just a couple of days ago. So they have made those final calculations. This period of time for the queries to be made, this three-day period before the certification is to allow anyone to come forward that takes a look at the results and says, that's not right and here's the reason. And then those cases will be analyzed and given time for full explanation.

But I think any ballot boxes that were going to be disqualified, that really has already happened. And when they began the process of announcing the results here, they were very keen to say, look, there hasn't been a delay. This has all been about accuracy. This has all been about transparency. We don't want to make any mistakes. They have had three sets of people checking the facts and figures as they come in every step of the way, working seven days a week, 24 hours a day, they've been telling us.

So it has been -- it has been a system that has had sort of full accountability all the way through, full transparency, and therefore the chance of somebody coming back and saying, hey, there's a box of ballots here that shouldn't have been counted, should have been disqualified, that doesn't seem likely at this stage, Betty.

NGUYEN: All right, CNN's Nic Robertson in Baghdad for us. Nic, we'll be checking in with you a little bit later on.

Thank you.

HARRIS: And Betty, let's spend a coupled of minutes talking to our White House correspondent Dana Bash this morning. And Dana, you've just heard Nic talking about the turn out in the Sunni areas is pretty abysmal.

And you know, there was a lot of talk about the Sunnis leading up in the run up to this election and how would they turn out and how would they be incorporated in this process of the new government.

There was a lot of concern about their participation before the election. What do you think is likely to be the administration's reaction to these abysmal numbers coming out of the Sunni area?

BASH: Well as we've talked about before, Tony, I don't think there's going to be a lot of surprise about that. The expectation was that the Shia majority would get the majority of the votes and that certainly is what we're seeing now.

But obviously it's very early. You see that they're still announcing these results. So we don't have any official White House reaction yet. But you can bet that what they are likely to do is focus on what they see as the big picture here, which is that this is another example of democracy in Iraq actually working.

That if you look at the theater, if you will, of this press conference of going through and announcing province by province the fact that there were so many votes, you know, 8.55 million votes, as Nic said, that's possibly 60 percent of the electorate. That's a pretty impressive number...

HARRIS: Sure is.

BASH: ...of people going out to vote. So in terms of the specifics certainly there are a lot of questions still to be answer, but you're likely to hear the White House talk about this just being another step in a very long process toward an ultimate democracy but possibly just talk about, from their point of view, the success and the fact that this proves that these elections were a success.

HARRIS: You know what, Dana, yes you're absolutely right. There's a lot take from this. But I'm going to go back to that Sunni point just to express it this way.

When we heard conversation about the Sunni involvement in the reelection, in the run up, the concern was is that if the Sunnis don't take part in this process in significant numbers it might fuel, add fuel to the insurgency and certainly you heard that as well, correct?

BASH: That's right. And you know it's interesting to look -- go back two weeks at the reaction to the fact that the election did go off without a lot of violence, and the surprise, frankly, the sigh of relief even that you heard from the White House.

But there was a sort of memory of their MO, if you will, after the actual or during the actual beginning of the war after Baghdad fell.

HARRIS: Yes.

BASH: The same sort of thought that well, wow what happened? The violence wasn't as bad as we thought and then they slowly emerged. There certainly is concern that this is going to happen. In fact we saw it this week. I think there were about 108 people, Iraqis killed just in the past week and the insurgency does seem to have kicked up a bit at this point.

But there certainly is concern that the Sunnis will actually see these numbers and the insurgency will escalate even more. That is certainly something that they're thinking about, the White House, no question, Tony.

HARRIS: And Dana one last question. If it wasn't the Iraqi show up to this point, you have to think that the administration believes that it is certainly the Iraqis show from this point on. They get now to write this constitution. They get now to pick the president, the prime minister and so on and so forth. It is certainly their show now.

BASH: That's right. And that is again the delicate dance that the White House has been dancing and will continue to because it -- a lot of open questions as to what this 275 member assembly will create in terms of the government. Whether or not it will be a theocracy, if you will.

And there is concern that has been voiced by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and others that they certainly don't want this to look like Iran, but also caution that it's not going to look like America and that you have to -- American shave to realize that they are going to have to create this government themselves.

But again, as you mentioned, it is certainly going to be an Iraq process, but there is not question that the Americans are going to be working behind the scenes to try to make sure that the Sunnis are represented in some way.

HARRIS: White House correspondent Dana Bash. Very good. Dana, thank you.

BASH: Thank you.

NGUYEN: And we want to see how the Arab world is reacting to all the numbers that are coming out today. For that we want to bring in our senior editor for Arab affairs and that is Octavia Nasr. Thanks for being with us this morning.

We are getting some numbers in right now from Reuters. Reuters is reporting that the Shiite alliance is getting 47.6 percent of the vote, Kurds with 25.4 percent and Allawi's group with 13.6 percent. Now that is pretty much on par with what was projected, correct?

NASR: Right, almost. The Shia were expected to get some 60 percent. But these are very close. I'm monitoring...

HARRIS: Unofficial count.

NASR: Yes. And of course they're still announcing, still giving numbers. We can see them there.

I'm watching, as you see here, as you guys were doing your interviews and they are projecting. They are reporting the same things basically. They're giving 48 percent to the Sistani. More than 25 percent to the Kurds and the Allawi is sort of up in the air. They're not giving any results on that yet because it seems they're not clear on those numbers.

So Arab media are following the story just as we are with numbers and guess.

NGUYEN: What do those numbers mean when it comes to actual people and positions?

NASR: Well it means a lot because, you know, you have a few positions now that are up for grabs. You have a president's position, two vice president's position, a prime minister and you have a speaker of the house position.

The Shia have indicated that they are not interested in the president or vice president positions. What they want, they want the prime minister's position because they believe that this is where the power is...

NGUYEN: The power is.

NASR: And it seems that, I mean these numbers are going to indicate whether they are going to get what they want or not with 48 percent...

HARRIS: The Kurds want that too.

NASR: Well the Kurds... HARRIS: Will they settle for the presidency?

NASR: Right. They're not after the prime minister's position. It seems like, and I have to tell you on Arab media all these Arab experts and politicians have been saying that the reason why the results were not announced earlier is that they wanted to figure out that distribution before those results are announced.

They wanted to make sure that all the parties involved know exactly who's going to get what, which piece of the cake they're going to get.

And basically it seems like even this morning's papers Hasfi (ph), for example, actually all of them. All the Arab papers that I read this morning the headline there is that Allawi is saying it's OK. He welcomes Kurdish president of Iraq. And that seems to be the headline.

HARRIS: Why does he have to sign off on it? Why is that statement the headline? I mean look, he is essentially -- isn't he essentially, I don't want to say done, but close to done? I mean he's...

NASR: I wouldn't say that.

HARRIS: You think he's still a player?

NASR: I wouldn't say that. I mean he is the interim prime minister. He remains the prime minister of Iraq at this point. His opinion -- he represents a good portion of the population. He ran in this election.

HARRIS: Yes.

NASR: He does stand to get a good position in the new government. So his opinion matters. Now why it's a headline. Not because of what he said, but because of the Kurds. I think this is going to be the story that not many people are focusing on, but it's going to turn out to be the success story of the election.

HARRIS: Well, when we come back we're going to talk more about that. Because I think Allawi and his -- well, never mind. We'll get to that...

NGUYEN: Yes, we'll get to that when we come back. We are going to take a quick break, but we do want to tell you that CNN has confirmed that eight million votes were cast in this election.

And all of this brings us to our e-mail question of the day. What is the best case scenario for Iraq? Send us your thoughts this morning to wam@cnn.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: All right. We're going to take you back now to the Baghdad convention center where there is a little question and answer session going on right now. Let's listen in.

AYAR: The percentages that were given to all of the candidates here we take -- we divide the total of the number. But this is an educator and not a fixed matter because their are differences in the votes and the percentages.

So there is an older number, 17 and it has been distributed or it's being distributed now and it has complete clarifications of these mathematical issues and you can look at that leaflet that is being circulated.

And also you can look on the location of the commission date in that it has all of the details related to the distribution of the seats in the national assembly in a very scientific way.

Anything we may say here can be misinterpreted and could not be clear. So we will rely on the Internet page for the commission. Thank you.

(UNINTELLIGIBLE) television.

QUESTION: You mentioned the names of independent candidates and it became clear that they are -- they belong to other parties. For example, the person number one the list 123, the same person has number 44 and maybe 30. So we got votes from both list. What is the solution for this?

AYAR: We have, of course, a committee that audits these matters. Of course the results that were allowed shortly after the approval we will lay those people who will occupy these places, whether international counsel of Kurdistan or the international assembly.

So, after the completion of the complaint period and the approval of the final results.

Amisha (ph) newspaper.

QUESTION: You said that you would not accept any complaints regarding the number that is in front of every party or structure, but you -- only for relations. The complaints must be about the procedures and not the numbers, as we stated. So we cannot recount some areas?

AYAR: No.

QUESTION: Ahatchanel (ph). Does these results include the Iraqis abroad as well?

AYAR: Yes. It includes the results of the elections abroad. So we're all now unified with regard to the national assembly.

QUESTION: Can you tell me the period needed for the approval of these results?

AYAR: As of tomorrow if there are complaints the commission will receive it and everybody has three days. During these three days we will try to respond to some of these complaints and anyone may extend the time.

When we finish all of this we will approve the results.

QUESTION: Hi. I was wondering what -- how the seats -- how the votes are allocated. If votes went to a candidate who did not receive one seat do those votes disappear? And then how is the percentage of votes required to get a seat adjusted? Thanks.

AYAR: If I understood the question correctly what is the required number to receive -- to get a seat in the national assembly or the government counsel. This will be through dividing. If I understood the question correctly that -- can you repeat...

QUESTION: Sorry. There are many parties who will not receive any seats at all. So those votes just -- those end up -- those votes are not reallocated to other parties, correct?

AYAR: Definitely. The parties or the individuals or the structures that did not -- were not able to receive the required votes will not -- their votes will not be given to other parties.

There is order number 17 regarding the method of counting the votes and they are -- it is published in Arabic and English and there are also instructions also regarding the allocation of seats.

QUESTION: Zameda (ph), per Iraq, what are the number of the total voters inside and outside of Iraq? The total number of voters internally and externally.

AYAR: Three -- 8,456,000 of 260. So as we said in the past we said we said we had some anticipations long time ago that there are about eight million voters out of 14.2 million registered voters. In addition to 250,000 that's left. So our estimate was very close to this actual number

Mohamed Dilwa (ph) from Kuwait News Agency.

QUESTION: The independent democratic group does that -- received a certain number. Does that mean that the tribes that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) does not enter into the national assembly?

AYAR: Until now we have not counted the percentage for every seat. When the calculations are made with the correct numbers of votes and we divide it on the number of seas we will be able to answer that.

QUESTION: How many approximately?

AYAR: It will appear after the period oft he complaints. And after test approval of the results we will provide you with list of those who will get seats in the national assembly.

Roger Dislai (ph).

QUESTION: There is the issue of Kirkuk and the problems of the protests of the Turkoman in Kirkuk. How would you deal with this issue?

AYAR: There are, of course at first we would like to say that any complaints or protests presented to the commission we encourage it and we welcome it. This is a part of a real democracy and transparency.

There were many complaints and protests presented by various groups and we have dealt with each one of them and we respect those who submit these complaints and we also try to respond to these complaints in an acceptable way to those who complain.

And in Kirkuk also these issues were also studied and were taken into consideration and all the issues were resolved related to this area.

QUESTION: With regard to the issue of the 300 boxes that were recounted, the commission has not clarified so far what was the nature of the complaints regarding these boxes and how did they do the recount and what did they find? What were the results?

AYAR: The complaints that were presented to the commission in general were -- appeared during the audits by the commission itself. The apparatus for counting and the commission discovered some of these mistakes and some of the doubts, which led us to bring these boxes, these suspected boxes from all the governments in Iraq and we brought it to the national -- to the headquarters and we recounted these boxes and we took the appropriate procedures.

These boxes did not come as a result of complaint, but we as a commission discovered it ourselves and brought it here to the headquarters.

Ali Sufar, Dawa newspaper.

QUESTION: Doctor Farid thank you for all your efforts that you exerted in this process and we thank you for the transparency of the commission. But there is simple -- now 160 line -- obtain 166 seat. Do you have an idea about the accuracy of this figure?

AYAR: First of all, we congratulate everybody. Those who did well and those who didn't because as -- just the mere participation in the election process, this national effort everybody is a winner.

So we are all very happy to be able to reach these good results for all. And we are sure that this list or that list that they are all Iraqi list and if they win they are for Iraq. If they don't win they're also are for Iraq. And we wish everybody would win.

This is what I wanted to say. I would like to remind you with the fact that these elections that were held in Iraq for the first time in 50 years was conducted in a wonderful way.

We were told by the experts of the United Nations that the percentage of mistakes or the...

NGUYEN: You've been listening to members of the Iraqi election commission do a question and answer session with members of the media there after they had announced the uncertified results from the Iraqi election. Some 8.55 million Iraqis voted in that election. That is 58 percent turn out. Quite a large turn out.

And of course, we will continue our live coverage of these elections results when we come back.

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