Ondervoorzitter Dick Cheney vertelde militairen in Irak dat de 9/11 aanvallen het besluit aanspoorden om Irak binnen te vallen.

BAGDAD - Amid scheuren en wails, begonnen mourners in de zuidelijke stad van Najaf op Dinsdag begraaf slachtoffers die van een zelfmoord dat gedood bijna 50 worshipers en verwonde dozens vlak vóór het gelijk maken van gebedenMaandag in nabijgelegen Karbala bombarderen.

In Bagdad, begon een lang-voorzien verzoeningsconferentie met grote fanfare, dan snel oploste in gebruikelijke sectarisch en politiek klem zet die verscheidene het gelijkaardige de laatste jaren verzamelen in de war zich hebben gebracht zich.

Maar Ondervoorzitter Dick Cheney gaf een upbeat mening van voorwaarden in Irak aangezien hij zijn reis besloot om de vijfde verjaardag van de V.S. te merken - geleide invasie. Cheney defended the toppling of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as part of the struggle against terrorism following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

This month, an exhaustive Pentagon-sponsored review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents captured during the 2003 U.S. invasion found no evidence that Hussein’s regime had any operational links with al Qaeda.

But Cheney, who spent the night at a sprawling U.S. base in the northern town of Balad, told soldiers they were defending future generations of Americans from terrorism.

”This long-term struggle became urgent on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. That day we clearly saw that dangers can gather far from our own shores and find us right there at home,” said Cheney, who was accompanied by his wife, Lynne, and their daughter, Elizabeth.

”So the United States made a decision: to hunt down the evil of terrorism and kill it where it grows, to hold the supporters of terror to account and to confront regimes that harbor terrorists and threaten the peace,” Cheney said. “Understanding all the dangers of this new era, we have no intention of abandoning our friends or allowing this country of 170,000 square miles to become a staging area for further attacks against Americans.”

Cheney later traveled to Irbil, the capital of the mostly autonomous Kurdish region, for a meeting with Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, before flying to Oman.

FUNERAL LIMITS

Meanwhile, at the graveyard in Najaf, police restricted funerals to eight family members, out of fears that the funerals would become a target for attacks. Emotions ran high among mourners of the bombing victims. One man draped himself over a coffin and sobbed, “My father, my father.”

”Security forces have been negligent in securing the city and the pilgrims,” said Mohamed Hassan Ali, who buried his cousin, a policeman who was killed in the blast. “This area should have had camera monitoring, searches and equipment to detect explosives.”

The devastating security breach at one of Iraq’s most sacred places added to the pressure on Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to make recent security gains stick and to keep the country on track for October elections.

MEETING BOYCOTTS

The Baghdad reconciliation conference was intended to bring the country’s warring factions to the negotiating table. But only half of the 700 invited guests showed up, and any real chance for negotiations dissolved when both the leading Sunni Muslim bloc and the powerful faction loyal to the rebel Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al Sadr announced boycotts.

”We entered the conference to reaffirm our support for national reconciliation, and we left to show our rejection of all these fake conferences,” Nassar al Rubaiye, a Sadr-allied lawmaker, said of the walkout. Most Sunnis and Sadrists didn’t participate, and Shiite lawmakers in attendance hinted that the groups weren’t missed.

Sunni lawmakers boycotted because they believe Maliki hasn’t made good on pledges to disband Shiite militias, release detainees not charged with crimes and include Sunni legislators in security decisions.

Members of Sadr’s militant Shiite movement said they walked out because of the lack of dialogue in preparations, a crackdown on Sadr’s forces in the south and to protest thousands of Iraqi detainees in U.S. custody.

Across the board, there were complaints of late invitations, snubs and general disarray. Even Wathab Shaker, head of the parliament’s national reconciliation committee, said he was left out of all planning for the conference. He is a Sunni.

”No contact had been made between the preparation committee for the conference and the parliament’s reconciliation committee. Absolutely no contact,” Shaker said. “I wish them good luck.”

OTHER ATTACKS

Tuesday’s roster of attacks included two roadside bombs in Baghdad — one targeting civilians at a market in Shaab, the other at a busy intersection in al Bunook — that killed four Iraqis and wounded at least 13, authorities said. A car bomb outside an electronics store in Mosul killed three and wounded 40, the U.S. military said.

Laith Hammoudi is a special correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers. Mohammed al Dulaimy contributed from Baghdad; Qassim Zein reported from Najaf. Both are special correspondents.

McClatchy News Service

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