US Vice-President Dick Cheney visited Iraq yesterday for the first time since the 2003 invasion as hardline leaders from both sides of the country's sectarian divide renewed calls for American troops to go home.

Cheney, one of the chief architects of the war to oust Saddam Hussein, met Iraq's prime minister and president during his 8-hour visit, and hailed Thursday's election as "tremendous."

But outspoken Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose popular Islamist movement is a key component in the country's interim ruling coalition, and Saleh al-Mutlak, a Sunni Arab nationalist who has spoken up for the views of insurgents, said the Americans were not welcome in Iraq and should leave now.

A lull in violence around the largely peaceful vote was shattered by a bomb in a busy Baghdad market. It exploded close to a Shi'ite mosque although it was unclear if that was the target. Police said it killed five people but the Interior Ministry said just one person, a woman, died.

Sadr, who commands a powerful militia and devotional support from many young Shi'ites, accused the United States of self-interest and caring nothing for the Iraqi people.

Mutlak said US President George W. Bush was deluding himself if he believed the election was truly democratic, and also said some of his candidates had been killed in the largely Shi'ite south of Iraq on election day. It was the first report of candidates being killed and could not be confirmed.
 
While neither Sadr nor Mutlak will head the next government, both are influential within their respective communities, and their dissent highlights the size of the task facing the next administration, charged with keeping Iraq's rival sects and ethnic groups in check while building a stable democracy.

The United States hopes the election, widely hailed as a success, will allow it to start pulling troops out of Iraq in significant numbers next year.

Bush was due to address the nation from the Oval Office later on Sunday local time in the latest of a series of speeches on Iraq.

Faced with weak approval ratings, over 2,100 US war dead and widespread anxiety about his government's mission here, he is expected to stress the success of the election.

The US military says it is making headway against the largely Sunni Arab insurgency which has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis in the past three years and made life dangerous and miserable for millions more.

Yesterday, US forces said they discovered a cache of bomb-making equipment near Saddam's home town of Tikrit, 175 kilometers north of Baghdad.

The cache, found on election day, consisted of 414 two-way radios, 48 circuit boards and more than 100 timing devices which could have been used to make roadside bombs the biggest threat to patrolling US soldiers.

Problem or cure?

While the Iraqi Government says the Americans must stay for the time being to provide security and stop the country sliding into civil war, some Iraqis say the US presence is the problem and that if troops leave, the insurgency will wither.

Speaking in Najaf on Saturday after talks with Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Sadr said Washington was thinking only of itself in helping Iraq stage the election.

"The presence of the occupiers made the electoral process difficult," the cleric said. "The occupiers weren't interested in what the people wanted. They want whoever will serve their interests, not the interests of the people."

Mutlak, a wealthy businessman who stood in the election at the head of a secular Sunni coalition, was no less scathing.

"Mr President, do not believe that a real democratic process took place in Iraq," he told a news conference, addressing Bush. "If anyone tells you that, they are wrong."

He said people had let sectarianism usually code for backing Shi'ite Islamist parties cloud their judgment when voting and claimed some of his Sunni candidates in the predominantly Shi'ite south had been murdered on election day.

(China Daily December 19, 2005)