Dick Cheney popped into Iraq today for a little surpise visit. But, his “blunt message,” The N.Y. Times reports, “was obscured by the nebulous diplomatic utterances that characterized the brief public moments of a visit confined entirely to meetings in Baghdad’s heavily protected Green Zone.”

Vice President Dick Cheney used a 12-hour visit to Baghdad today to press Iraq’s feuding political factions to pull together urgently on such divisive issues as oil revenues, political militias, provincial elections, the division of power in the future Iraqi state and the rehabilitation of thousands of former Saddam Hussein-era officials.

John Kerry responded to Cheney’s surprise visit telling “Cheney to Get Tough with Iraqi Government.” “No American soldier should die so that the Iraqi politicians can take a vacation,” said Kerry.

Kerry (D-Mass.) issued the following statement today, in response to Vice President’s Dick Cheney meetings in Iraq with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Both Ambassador Ryan Crocker and a senior Administration official admitted to reporters today that part of the reason behind Cheney’s trip is to simply ask the Iraqi Parliament not to take a planned two month vacation this summer, given the country’s ongoing civil war.

“It was very disappointing to hear the Vice President say that the Iraqis’ decision to take a vacation while our troops are dying is ‘a sovereign issue to them.’ He should have delivered a much tougher message to the Iraqis, that they must start working overtime to find a political solution to end the violence – not leave things unfinished for two months.

“No American soldier should die so that the Iraqi politicians can take a vacation. An Iraqi Parliament that spends July and August sitting around a swimming pool while their country descends into further unrest and civil war does not deserve America’s support. With every passing day it becomes clearer that the US should not be sending our brave troops into the middle of a brutal, chaotic civil war that Iraq’s own leaders are unwilling to solve.”

Kerry first spoke out against the Iraqi politicians’ vacation in a floor statement last Tuesday.

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