Urgent/Joe Biden arrives in Iraq

Iraq-US BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: U.S. Vice President-elect Joe Biden arrived in Baghdad on Monday on a surprise visit to Iraq. He held a meeting with Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani, according to a presidential source. “Biden arrived in Baghdad on Monday afternoon (Jan. 12) accompanied by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and a number of Senators,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. Biden voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq but later became a critic of the war and the way in which President George W. Bush was executing it. He is best known in Iraq as the author of a 2006 plan to divide the country into self-governing Sunni, Shitte and Kurdish enclaves — an idea that offended many Iraqi politicians and was quietly put on the back burner as violence ebbed. SH (P)/SR 5