Rice told Fox News Sunday that turnout was "better than expected" among the 14 million eligible Iraqis but they still had "a lot of difficult political work, a lot of difficult security work" before them in the face of a stubborn insurgency.

"I suspect that the insurgents will try to demonstrate that despite today's vote, that they are still a very viable force, and they are very, very brutal intimidators and I don't expect that to go away," she said.

She said the United States was trying to build up local Iraqi forces, and sidestepped a question about when the 150,000 American troops in the country could start to withdraw.

"We have to finish the work here. We have to achieve the mission," Rice said. "But it has always been the hope and the plan that America and coalition forces will return (home) when they're no longer needed."

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