Red, white
and blue town
sees purple

updated 11:37 p.m. ET Feb. 2, 2005

WASHINGTON - A city draped in red, white and blue got an injection of purple Wednesday evening.

Lawmakers came to President Bush’s State of the Union address with purple suits, ties and ink-stained fingers to celebrate the Iraqi elections Sunday, in which voters had their index fingers dipped in purple ink to prevent multiple voting.

Raising her finger back at lawmakers, Safia Taleb al-Suhail, leader of the Iraqi Women’s Political Council, sat in the gallery above the House chamber and waved to show that she voted three days ago, 11 years after her father was assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s intelligence service.

She gave a long hug to Janet and William Norwood of Pflugerville, Texas, whose 25-year-old son, Sgt. Byron Norwood, was killed Nov. 13 by sniper fire during an assault on Fallujah. After her son’s death, Janet Norwood wrote to the president in support of his policies in Iraq.

Bush said her son had told his mother before he left, “Now it’s my turn to protect you.”

The embrace prompted the longest applause of the evening.

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