summer, august. and august 20111, getting all of the troops out of there. the election, period, whether there is going to be a surge in sectarian violence, given the power of the sunnis which turned out in high numbers. what does that mean for our u.s. troops there? that s a question for ordinero, coming up. the baker commission, this is a disaster, falling apart. if you look at today, it does look like a real success from that point certainly. it shows some risk in terms of what potentially could go wrong. there s also a possible engagement with iran if things sort of percolating there. doesn t that put u.s. troops in iraq in jeopardy? so many things. this is interesting. he was over there, and they disqualified sunnis. doing it for the benefit of iran. iran s influence is growing.
democratic leaders see a financial regulation as a chance for spring tooichl renewal. their goal is senate passage financial regulation gives democrats a rare opportunity to tap the tea party populism that republicans have exploded on health care. that may be a good point it may be an opportunity to give them positive developments in every narrative. look if they can do that, here too, if they can get the health care bill passed and if they can get financial regulation passed which i also think they will, pretty soon you have the possibility for a much different narrative than, oh, my gosh, rahm, axle rod, this and that, and obama s numbers down. then have you really significant achievements. that doesn t mean democrats would have a good mid-term election. they ll lose seats no matter what happens. but it may be a better year than we anticipated a month ago.
history. dozens of parties and coalitions fielded thousands of candidates, men and women. ballots cast at some 50,000 voting booths. in a strong turnout, millions exercised their right to vote with enthusiasm and optimism. nbc chief foreign correspondent richard engel joins us live from baghdad this morning. he s been covering the election. how the people feel about it. richard what can you tell us, given the violence there. it still seems over all this was a positive experience for the people of iraq. reporter: that s what iraqis are telling us today. 55% to 60% turnout, that s pretty good for this country. despite the violence, 30 or more people killed yesterday. they still felt confident they were able to go out and vote. iraqi security force does a relatively good job securing polling stations.
top spokesmen. american officials immediately expressed skepticism, and pakistan now says it appears to be a case muof mistaken identit. despite a string of deadly explosions, yesterday s parliamentary elections marks a milestone in iraq s move toward democracy. turnout between 55% and 60%, with exact figures due out later today. still, at least 38 people killed in baghdad, where dozens of blasts shook the capital this is seen as a critical test as the government s ability to secure the capital. the vote marks an important step to the country s future. the people of iraq went to the polls to choose their leaders in iraq s second national election. by any measure, this was an important milestone in iraqi history. dozens of parties and coalitions
is the fact that over the years, and thanks largely to the gentleman sitting next to me, that the level of violence has continued to come down, and the iraqi forces have continued to step up and that is really the difference today. when there are terrorist attacks, people don t blame the military or don t blame the police. they see that these terrorist attacks are being conducted by terrorist cells and they blame them. and the security forces do their best to deal with them. that is, no one ais excusing the security forces of being on one side or the other. these are hopeful trends. whether iraq is able to consolidate its democracy, certainly the election was a very good sign. they will have to go through a tough government formation period. i think they know what they are in for. i think we know what they are in for. it will take weeks, and as the president said, maybe perhaps months to get through this. but at the end of that, the united states looks to have a very long-term and succ