Blast shakes embassy as Cheney visits Iraq
BAGHDAD – Vice President Dick Cheney pressed Iraq’s leaders to do more to reduce violence and achieve political reconciliation Wednesday in a visit punctuated by an explosion that shook windows at the U.S. Embassy where Cheney was visiting.
Cheney acknowledged the country still has serious security problems. Iraqi leaders “believe we are making progress, but we’ve got a long way to go,” he said.
The vice president urged that Iraq’s parliament abandon plans for a two-month summer vacation while U.S. forces are fighting. With important issues pending, including how to share Iraq’s oil wealth, “any undue delay would be difficult to explain,” Cheney said.
As Democrats clamor for an end to the four-year-old war and President Bush sags in the polls, the White House is under intense political pressure to show that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government is making progress.
Eight days after Bush vetoed a bill setting deadlines for U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq, the White House also served notice that Bush would veto a follow-up bill drafted by House Democratic leaders that would pay for the Iraq war only into summer. At the same time, Defense Secretary Robert Gates held out hope that troops can begin withdrawing if the Iraqi government makes progress by fall.
Baghdad was Cheney’s first stop on a weeklong trip to the Middle East to seek support from moderate Arab leaders for help in bringing stability to Iraq. The vice president, joined by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, met with Iraqi political and military leaders.
“I do believe that there is a greater sense of urgency now than I’d seen previously,” he said.
Cheney spent most of the day at the U.S. Embassy inside the heavily protected Green Zone in central Baghdad. He was in the building when an explosion rattled windows and prompted officials to move reporters accompanying Cheney to the basement for several minutes. Witnesses said a mortar or rocket appeared to have been fired from the mostly Shiite areas on the east side of the Tigris River toward the Green Zone.
The vice president, at a news conference a half hour later, did not mention the blast. He had been wearing an armor-plated vest when he got off his plane at the airport.
Cheney said that Iraqi leaders felt sectarian violence was “down fairly dramatically” even though car bombings and suicide attacks still claim a heavy toll. “I think everybody recognizes there still are serious security problems, security threats, no question about it.”
Separately, Cheney’s spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride said, “His business was not disrupted. He was not moved.”