US Vice President Dick Cheney swept into Baghdad on an unannounced visit yesterday, looking to highlight security gains and promote elusive political progress days before the war enters its sixth year.
But soon after he arrived, two explosions rocked Baghdad, following a roadside bombing that killed a policeman, underscoring the violence that still grips the nation almost five years after the US-led invasion.
A security official said one of the blasts was caused by a mortar attack on the highly-fortified Green Zone, home of the US embassy and the seat of Iraqi government.
Cheney first held talks with the top US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and the US ambassador Ryan Crocker.
According to state television Al-Iraqiya, he then went into a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
He is due also to hold talks with other senior Iraqi political figures, including President Jalal Talabani.
In a separate mission, US Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain was scheduled to meet Iraqi leaders as well as US military officials to assess the success of the "surge" strategy that deployed more soldiers to Iraq, his aides said.
Cheney's unheralded visit marks the first stop on a nine-day tour of the Middle East, with scheduled landings in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the West Bank and Turkey.
A senior administration official told reporters accompanying Cheney that the vice president would tell the Iraqis "they need to continue to show some progress" on legislation seen as key to defusing sectarian strife.
The laws include an oil-revenue sharing measure; a law setting out provincial government powers; and one covering elections that the US official said were expected to take place on Oct. 1.
The official, who asked not to be named, said negotiations to forge an agreement governing long-term US-Iraq ties would be part of the talks five years after the March 20, 2003 US invasion.
The framework needs to be in place by yearend, when the UN mandate for the occupation ends, but "that conversation is really just beginning," the official said.
Cheney's talks with Crocker and Petraeus came as they prepared to make a progress report on the unpopular war to the US Congress on April 8 and April 9, which is expected to shape debate on withdrawal of some 158,000 US troops.
The US vice president's meetings with top Iraqi leaders, including Maliki and Talabani, comes as Washington pushes Baghdad to make more headway on the politics of national reconciliation.
US President George W. Bush's Republicans worry that the war could cost them the Nov. 4 elections, which will decide control of Congress and who takes the keys of the White House next January.
The conflict has claimed nearly 4,000 US lives and cost -- by the Pentagon's conservative estimate -- upwards of US$400 billion.
Cheney made a similar trip last May, months after Bush ordered some 30,000 more US soldiers to the strife-torn country to give what aides called "breathing space" to the government in Baghdad to enact difficult legislation aimed at fostering national reconciliation.
But Petraeus told the Washington Post last week that "no one" in the US and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in providing basic public services.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese