Thunderous explosion rocks Baghdad during Cheney visit

A thunderous explosion struck Baghdad on Wednesday, coinciding with a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney to discuss efforts to reduce the violence in Iraq.

The blast appeared to strike in the vicinity of the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad, but that could not immediately be confirmed. Witnesses said it appeared to have been fired from the mostly Shiite areas on the east side of the Tigris River.

The U.S. military and the U.S. Embassy said they had no information but were looking into what happened.

Cheney, who arrived earlier Wednesday for an unannounced visit, met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

After the explosion, Cheney's spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said, His business was not disrupted. He was not moved.

Cheney's visit drew protests from followers of radical anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who commands a heavily armed militia in Baghdad.

Both leaders acknowledged problems in the pace of reducing violence in Iraq but pledged their governments would continue working together toward a solution.

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's unscheduled visit to Iraq on Wednesday, intended to pressure Iraqi leaders to do more towards achieving reconciliation among factions.

During the visit, he received a first-hand briefing on conditions in the war-torn country, and was updated on the effectiveness of the U.S. military buildup by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander stationed there.

Petraeus recently said that conditions in Iraq may get harder before they get easier and will require enormous, ongoing commitment from the United States.

"There's a lot going on. This is a very important time. There's a lot to talk about," Cheney said in a meeting with Ryan Cocker, the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

Cheney made Iraq the first stop on a week-long tour of the Middle East during which he will also visit the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. He had not made his plans to stop in Iraq public.

Cheney was scheduled to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as well as Iraq's Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, its Sunni and Shiite vice presidents, and other government leaders.

According to his aides, the vice president hoped to encourage reconciliation among rival factions and emphasize that the conflict in Iraq cannot be ended by military means alone.

Cheney's mission was both to get a sense of the situation on the ground in Iraq and to deliver a message that more work is needed on the political front to overcome divisions and delays, his aides added.

The visit follows a secure video conference earlier this week between al-Maliki and President Bush about the need to move forward on legislation to help repair the rift between majority-party Shiite Arabs and minority Sunni Arabs. Sunni legislators have been threatening to pull out of the government.

Cheney also was likely to renew a U.S. request that the Iraqi parliament not take a scheduled two-month break during these troubled times, according to Cocker, which he said was impossible to understand.

A senior administration official who briefed reporters said Cheney's message to Iraq's leadership was: "We've all got challenges together. We've got to pull together. We've got to get this work done. It's game time."

This was Cheney's second visit to Iraq as vice president. The first was in December 2005.

The visit took place against a backdrop of American discontent with the war. A recent poll found that six out of 10 Americans believe a timetable must be set for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, though a clear majority predict civil war there if U.S. forces withdraw next year.

The USA Today/Gallup poll also found a majority of Americans expect terrorist attacks on the United States regardless of whether U.S. forces pull out in 2008.