 U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday on an unannounced visit, at a time when pressure from Washington is growing on the Iraqi government to meet benchmarks aimed at healing sectarian strife. Cheney was due to meet senior Iraqi officials and hold talks with the U.S. military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, a U.S. embassy information officer said. The U.S. vice president, one of the main architects of the invasion of Iraq, is on a tour of the Middle East. The White House had said Cheney's tour in the region was a follow-up to last week's conference on Iraq in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in which Washington held a top-level contact with Syria and signaled a willingness to do so with Iran. |