The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has said she is confident that Iraq's government and people are committed to democracy.
She was speaking in Baghdad after meeting the Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari on her first visit to Iraq.
Dr Rice said the country was emerging from a nightmare of tyranny into freedom which was, she said, a dream of people all over the world.
She said she wanted to discuss ways of moving the political process forward to help end the violence in which more than 400 people have died in just over two weeks.
The seriousness of the situation has been underlined by the discovery of the bodies of 34 people, some of whom had been beheaded, in three separate locations.
The largest find was in Baghdad's Sadr city where thirteen bodies were found, while ten Iraqi soldiers were found dead in the western city of Ramadi.
Extreme security measures were put in place for Ms Rice's visit.
Ms Rice is the most senior US official to visit Iraq since its new government was formed at the end of last month.
