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McCain, Cheney vow long-term Iraq presence

BAGHDAD — Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John McCain vowed in meetings with Iraq’s prime minister Monday that the U.S. would maintain a long-term military presence in Iraq until al-Qaida is defeated there.

Explosions went off near the heavily fortified Green Zone shortly after Cheney arrived. Helicopter gunships circled central Baghdad, but no details were immediately available on the cause of the explosions.

The presumptive Republican candidate for president, who has linked his political future to military success in Iraq, met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shortly before the Iraqi leader began separate talks with Cheney.

McCain stressed that it was important to maintain the U.S. commitment in Iraq, where a U.S.-Iraq military operation is underway to clear al-Qaida from its last urban stronghold of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

“We recognize that al-Qaida is on the run, but they are not defeated,” McCain said after meeting al-Maliki. “Al-Qaida continues to pose a great threat to the security and very existence of Iraq as a democracy. So we know there’s still a lot more of work to be done.”

McCain, who arrived in Iraq on Sunday, told reporters that he also discussed with the Shiite leader the need for progress on political reforms, including laws on holding provincial elections and the equitable distribution of Iraq’s oil riches.

At a news conference with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, Cheney said that given the nearly 4,000 U.S. troop deaths and billions of dollars spent on the war, it is very important that “we not quit before the job is done.”

Cheney, who stayed on a military base reporters were asked not to reveal for safety reasons, credited reductions in violence to President Bush’s decision to deploy an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq. In deciding whether to draw back more than the 30,000 before he leaves office, Cheney said Bush will weigh whether the U.S. can continue on a track toward political reconciliation and stability in Iraq.

“It would be a mistake now to be so eager to draw down the force that we risk putting the outcome in jeopardy,” said Cheney. “And I don’t think we’ll do that.”

Asked whether the progress that’s been made on the security front is an indication of more troop withdrawals after July, Cheney answered, “No, it does not.”

Petraeus and Crocker are working on a status report on the war and will testify to Congress in April. Petraeus said discussions on the report would continue within the chain of command this week and then with the president.

“We’re keenly aware of the strain and the stress that these extended deployments have put on soldiers and their families and we would love to draw down further, but that is dependent on conditions on the ground,” he said.

At the news conference, a rarity for the vice president, Cheney was asked questions ranging from Iran to oil to the upcoming presidential election.

The vice president brushed off President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to Baghdad and said it was not widely discussed at his meetings with Iraqi leaders.

“We obviously noted Ahmadinejad’s visit to Iraq,” Cheney said, adding that he did not find it surprising that the leader of a neighboring nation would visit.

Cheney said U.S. allies in the Arab world should send ambassadors to Iraq as a counter to Iran, which is seeking a greater sphere of influence in the Middle East and is accused of supporting terrorists and extremists in Iraq.

“A number of them have indicated that they’re prepared to do it but have not yet done it,” Cheney said.

Cheney steered clear of sharing any concerns that his Iraqi hosts have about the upcoming presidential election.

“I’m not here to sell a particular partisan view to our hosts,” he said just hours after McCain left Baghdad after a weekend visit.

Asked whether he came on his third vice presidential visit to Iraq with a weaker hand because he and Bush have just 10 months left in office, Cheney said, “I don’t feel any sense of the loss of influence, if you will. If anything, the successes that we’ve demonstrated here have given us greater credibility than would have been the case if we hadn’t had the surge and the progress of the last 12, 15 months.”

Bush’s decision last January to increase troops put to rest any notion that either “here inside Iraq or in the region that people could ‘wait us out,’” Cheney said.

Al-Maliki said he and the vice president discussed ongoing negotiations over a long-term security agreement between the two countries that would replace the U.N. mandate for foreign troops set to expire at the end of the year.

“This visit is very important. It is about the nature of the relations between the two countries, the future of those relations and the agreement in this respect,” the prime minister told reporters. “We also discussed the security in Iraq, the development of the economy and reconstruction and terrorism.”

Elsewhere, a female suicide bomber struck Shiite worshippers in the holy city of Karbala on Monday, officials and a witness said, killing at least 43 people and leaving pools of blood on the street leading to one of Iraq’s most revered mosques.

The blast was the deadliest in a series of attacks that left at least 72 Iraqis dead, including six youths killed when mortar rounds slammed into a soccer field in eastern Baghdad.

The U.S. military has warned insurgents are using women in the attacks because they are more easily able to avoid being searched at checkpoints and can hide the explosives under traditional all-encompassing black Islamic robes.