NAJAF, Iraq —— Iraqi soldiers returned to their bases, and cars once again filled the streets Monday after Iraq's historic national elections.

The election brought thousands to the polls in the Shiite-dominated city of Najaf, about 100 miles southwest of Baghdad, where 2,000 Camp Pendleton Marines are stationed. An estimated 85 percent of registered voters in Najaf turned out, according to the Independent Electoral Commission that oversaw the voting.

The Marines, who are scheduled to return to the U.S. in a few weeks, stepped back from the city during the elections, allowing Iraqi forces to secure polling places.

After two days of lying relatively low, Marines resumed their patrols in the city Monday to re-establish a presence and to monitor the transfer of ballots from polling places to a guarded warehouse.

The Marines said they were proud of the way Iraqi security kept the peace Sunday in Najaf and in nearby Kufa. Not a single incident of violence was reported in the two cities under the Iraqis' watch.

"That's good news; it's a really good sign," said Sgt. Major Willie Metoyer, the top enlisted man of the Camp Pendleton-based 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit. "Looks like they did a good job out there."

Life as it was

As life returned to its usual chaos in Najaf on Monday, Iraqi civilians once again drove and honked their way down the north-south route into the city without being stopped and searched for weapons, as they were before and during the election.

At the edge of one neighborhood, a patrol of Marines guarded several Army heavy-hauler trucks as engineers removed concrete barriers from roadways and from polling place entrances.

Farther south, Iraqi Army soldiers dismantled roadblocks and tore down an earthen bunker at an intersection.

The scene was replicated all around Najaf as the security net that gripped the city during the election was relaxed and the normal rhythms of city life were allowed to resume.

The ubiquitous orange and white taxicabs again hobbled down trash-filled dirt roads.

Donkey-drawn carts steered by boys —— the chauffeurs of the adobe slums around the city's edge —— once again wheeled down the dusty shoulder of the main drag carrying children, old men and women in black cloaks called abayas.

The car horn again became the dominant noise in the city after two days of eerie silence.

It was back to basics, back to business, but still far from settled.

Guarding the vote

Although the ballots were counted at the polling places, the results of the vote probably will not be announced for at least a week, according to election officials.

The troops said they will remain especially vigilant during the wait and in the uncertain aftermath once the winners are named.

After that, it's anyone's guess what will happen, Marines here said.

In the meantime, the hundreds of thousands of ballots cast Sunday in the Najaf province were brought to a warehouse Monday in an industrial section of the city, where Australian guards hired by the provincial government stood watch.

The hired guns, employees of Osprey Assets Management, commanded a small army of Iraqi guards as the first of 14 tractor-trailers was unloaded into the warehouse at about 2 p.m..

They will guard the ballots for a month or so in case of a recount, said the Aussies' chief, a grizzly-faced man with a shiny AK-47 assault weapon who politely refused to give his name.

Inside, election workers recorded the arrival and oversaw the placement of each of the ballot-filled plastic bins, all of which were sealed with green tape.

A Marine patrol stopped at the warehouse briefly on Monday to offer the heavily armed civilian crew its support should the warehouse compound be attacked.

Milestone for Iraqi forces

As the Marines left the compound and passed several checkpoints manned by Iraqi police, Cpl. Brandon Barnette, 20, of Noblesville Ind., said he was heartened by the Iraqis' apparent professionalism during the election period.

"The biggest difference I've seen here has been security," he said as his patrol started down one of the main drags. Marines said they know every inch of the road after patrolling it for nearly seven months.

The security forces weren't very strong in past months, he said.

"Now they look pretty good," he added.

Barnette's patrol, the Alpha section of the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment's anti-armor team, stopped by the Iraqi Army's temporary base at a university campus near the governor's compound.

Truck after truck of Iraqi soldiers returned from their election day posts singing and chanting, waving their rocket-propelled grenade launchers and rifles in the air in triumph.

Marines and some of the returning Iraqi soldiers engaged in macho horseplay around their vehicles. They compared weapons, wore one another's hats and sparred and wrestled as soldiers do.

"They're just happy they didn't get shot," one Marine blurted as a truck rolled past a tangle of concertina wire, soldiers cheering from its crowded bed.

Another Marine played on the profound language gap between the American and Iraqi troops.

"Vive la France!" he shouted with a raised fist.

The Iraqis roared back, holding up fists and rifles.

Marines just shook their heads and laughed.

Gazing into deaths' maw

Satisfied after a short visit, the Marines left, making one more round in an especially dangerous sector of town to sample security before returning to base.

Najaf's massive cemetery, where Shiite Muslims have come from around the Islamic world to bury their dead for about 1,300 years, was the site of some of the most brutal fighting of the battle for Najaf in August.

Marines said they were fired on in the cemetery the last time they patrolled here, just a week before the election.

It was in the cemetery that Marines and Army soldiers battled the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to radical Najafi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, in the 120-plus-degree heat of early August.

The Marines of the 1st Battalion, 4th Regiment recount fighting grave by grave and mausoleum by mausoleum, often killing militants at point-blank range in underground catacombs and inside the shrines that dotted the square-mile burial ground.

The U.S. troops said one Marine private slit an Iraqi fighter's throat during a desperate tangle in a tomb.

Marines now speak of "the cemetery" with a certain reverence, some falling silent at its mention.

Skirting its edge Monday, Marines gazed silently out over the cemetery's eerie span toward the gold-domed Imam Ali mosque, where the battle ended in late August in a truce that allowed the surviving militants to leave.

At least eight Marines and several soldiers died, and an estimated 1,500 militants were killed in the battle, which consumed much of Najaf over most of August.

On Monday, Iraqi soldiers manned posts all along the edge of the vast cemetery and inside the adjacent Old City that surrounds the Imam Ali shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.

Cemetery quiet, patient

The Marines said the Iraqis guarding the cemetery and Old City have prevented al-Sadr's militia from regrouping and stashing arms there for another crack at the American occupiers.

"I haven't heard anything since drove them out," said Navy Corpsman Carl "Doc" Del Santo, 28, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., explaining that there were no signs of the militants' return.

He said the Iraqi troops' performance during the election period has demonstrated that they could probably prevent the return of al-Sadr's militia on their own.

'It's good to see them out here," he said. "There was a point when we got here when the militia could just waltz into an (Iraqi Police) station and take it over —— just take all the weapons.

"But now look at 'em," he said, pointing to a group of Iraqi soldiers standing at the northern edge of the cemetery. "The Iraqis are doing good."

One of the soldiers waved at the passing patrol, holding up a finger still stained by ink from when he voted Sunday.

Behind him, the gold dome of the ancient shrine glinted in the late afternoon sun.

In the naked desert nearby, new cemetery plots were already being staked out, the future tombs fanning out from the more than 1,000-year-old epicenter of graves.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Contact staff writer Darrin Mortenson at dmortenson@nctimes.com.