BAGHDAD, 11 May 2007 — US Vice President Dick Cheney, on the second day of a surprise visit to Iraq, said yesterday that Iraq’s political leaders hold the key to stabilizing their war-torn country.

“Success in that effort depends on Iraq’s leaders themselves, and the ultimate solution in this country will be a political solution,” Cheney told about 2,000 cheering US soldiers at Camp Speicher, a sprawling US base.

“But that requires basic security, especially in Baghdad, where Americans are working beside Iraqi forces to carry out the new strategy,” said the vice president, who spent Wednesday meeting top Iraqi politicians in Baghdad.

Cheney spent the night at Contingency Operating Base Speicher, becoming the most senior US official to overnight in Iraq since the March 2003 US-led invasion, before attending intelligence briefings and a troop rally.

“It was a good report, and I come away with even more appreciation for all you do, and greater confidence for the days ahead,” Cheney said. The base sits about 11 km from Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit in the grounds of the former Iraqi air force academy.

Cheney noted that the top US military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, said the troops were operating in “the most complex and challenging” environment he has ever seen.

“Extremists from inside and outside the country want to stir an endless cycle of violence, and Al-Qaeda is operating and trying to open new fronts,” said Cheney.

“Some seem to have no interest in seeing the emergency of a strong, secure and democratic Iraq. A violent minority is trying to tear down the institutions of peaceful self-government that Iraqis are trying to build.” Cheney made no direct reference to the bitter political wars in Washington over US troops funding, with the White House’s Democratic foes seeking to curtail US involvement in the unpopular war.

Later, Cheney flew in to the United Arab Emirates from Iraq.

A US official said Cheney will attempt to convince Iraq’s mostly Sunni neighbors to back a four-month US-led crackdown around the capital and convince their fellow religionists in Iraq to end support for the insurgency and embrace the country’s shaky political process.

In the UAE, the US vice president is expected to meet the country’s president, Sheikh Khalifa Ibn Zayed Al-Nahayan.

Cheney is also expected to visit Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia for talks with those countries’ heads of state.

Meanwhile, US-led forces conducted a raid in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City yesterday, killing three militants as they tried to break up a cell accused of smuggling weapons from Iran to fight US forces, the military said.

An Al-Qaeda front organization, the Islamic State of Iraq, posted a video showing the execution of nine Iraqi security officers who were lined up blindfolded with their hands bound behind them and shot in the back of the head.

Also yesterday, the US military announced that a US Marine was killed in fighting Wednesday in Anbar province west of Baghdad. In other violence, two gunmen on a motorcycle killed an Iraqi military intelligence officer as he drove through Diwaniyah, 130 km south of Baghdad.

In the city of Fallujah, 65 km west of Baghdad, gunmen killed a city council member in a drive-by shooting near his house, police said.

Iraqi police also discovered two bodies — bound, blindfolded and shot — floating in a river in Mahaweel, 56 km south of Baghdad. Two other bodies of police officers, one of them a colonel, were found in Mosul, 360 km northwest of Baghdad, police said.