http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080317/ts_nm/iraq_dc
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday declared the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq a "successful endeavor," pointing to security and political progress on a visit ahead of the fifth anniversary of the war.
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"If you look back on those five years it has been a difficult, challenging but nonetheless successful endeavor ... and it has been well worth the effort," he told a news conference in Baghdad after meeting Iraqi leaders.
The Iraq war, deeply unpopular among many Americans, is a major issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.
Cheney, an architect of the invasion, arrived as Republican presidential candidate John McCain was meeting Iraqi leaders as part of a Senate Armed Services Committee fact-finding mission.
"I was last in Baghdad 10 months ago and I sense that, as a result of the progress that has been made since then, phenomenal changes in terms of the overall situation," Cheney said after meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Cheney said there had been a "remarkable turnaround" in security after 30,000 extra troops were sent to Iraq last year to help reduce sectarian violence that threatened civil war.
Despite the improved security, however, some 4 million Iraqis are still displaced, and the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a report on Monday that millions were still deprived of clean water and medical care.
Like McCain, Cheney is in Iraq as part of a wider tour to the Middle East. Cheney will also visit Saudi Arabia, Jerusalem, the Palestinian territories, Turkey and Oman on a nine-day tour.
Both men have been staunch supporters of the U.S. troop build-up that Washington says helped drag Iraq back from the brink of all-out sectarian civil war between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Muslims who were dominant under Saddam.
"The surge is working," McCain, referring to the troop build-up, told CNN in an interview in Baghdad.
Cheney was met on his arrival in Baghdad by General David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. He last visited Baghdad in May 2007, a month before the deployment of an extra 30,000 troops was completed.
"There is still a lot of difficult work that must be done, but as we move forward the Iraqi people should know that they will have the unwavering support of President Bush and the United States in consolidating their democracy," Cheney said after meeting Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of Iraq's largest Shi'ite political bloc, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
VIOLENCE DOWN
The U.S. military says attacks across Iraq have fallen by 60 percent since last June, when the troop build-up was completed, but says a spike in violence since January is not a trend.
Neighborhood security units set up by mainly Sunni Arab tribal leaders and a ceasefire ordered by anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for his Mehdi Army militia have also contributed to bringing down violence, the U.S. military says.
A poll of 2,000 people from across Iraq, commissioned by international broadcasters including the BBC and U.S. network ABC, found that 55 percent believe their lives are now better.
But violence is still a daily threat despite security gains.
Roadside bombs and a minibus packed with explosives killed four people, including a policeman, and wounded 13 others in four attacks across Baghdad, police said. Neither Cheney nor McCain were in the area at the time.
Among the political issues Cheney and McCain discussed with Iraq's leaders are a stalled hydrocarbon law, one of Washington's reconciliation benchmarks, U.S. officials said.
The law will share revenues from Iraq's vast oil reserves, the world's third largest, but remains blocked because of reluctance to compromise among Iraq's political blocs.
Cheney and Maliki also discussed security and the future relationship between Washington and Baghdad after the U.N. mandate for the U.S. presence expires at the end of 2008, with talks on that pact to include the presence of U.S. troops.
"This visit is important because it comes at a time when there's a great deal of progress taking place in Iraq," Maliki said through a translator after meeting Cheney.
Cheney also met Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Iraq's two vice-presidents.
Cheney and McCain were not expected to meet in Iraq.
