DETROIT (AP) -- Iraqi Christians are both excited and nervous following the release of results of Iraq's first elections since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, according to a leader of the Chaldean Christian community in the United States.

A Shiite Muslim clergy-backed slate won 48 percent of the votes and 140 of the 275 National Assembly seats, according to results released Sunday in Baghdad. A Kurdish ticket got 26 percent and 75 seats.

"We are extending our hands to our brother Shiites, and Sunnis in Iraq, to work together to have a ... better, democratic Iraq," said Joseph Kassab, president of the U.S. branch of the Chaldean National Congress.

Kassab said a Christian slate won a single seat, while five Christians won seats through other slates.

That leaves Iraq's 5 percent Christian minority underrepresented in the Assembly, Kassab said. But he expressed hope that the Shiite, Kurdish and other parties would protect Christian interests as they draft Iraq's new constitution.

"The Shia are good friends to the Christians," he said.

Chaldean Americans, who are heavily concentrated in the Detroit area, see their homeland moving in a democratic direction after decades of dictatorial rule, Kassab said.

"This (election) is something that never happened for 66 years," he said. "We are very excited about this (step) in the right direction for democracy in Iraq."

But Kassab complained that many Christians in Iraq, particularly in the area of Nineveh, were unable to cast votes. Election organizers said conditions were dangerous in the area.

"We lost more than 150,000 votes in northern Iraq," he said.

Iraqi Americans cast 8,975 votes Jan. 28-30 at a polling site in the Detroit suburb of Southgate. In all, 24,335 of the 265,148 overseas votes were cast in the United States.

Chaldeans are a Catholic ethnic minority whose traditional language is a descendant of the Aramaic spoken throughout the Middle East at the time of Jesus.

In addition to the single seat won by the National Rafidain List, which represented Chaldean, Assyrian and other Christian groups, four Christians won seats on the Kurdish ticket and one was elected on the slate of interim Prime Minister Ayad Alawi, Kassab said.

Now, he said the main concern for Iraqi Christians is that minority rights be enshrined in the constitution to be written by the National Assembly.

"We need them to reconfirm the rights of all Iraq's minorities and religions," Kassab said.

By David N. Goodman