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Rumsfeld says most of Iraq is stable, despite attacks

December 2, 2003 - 8:35AM

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US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today there was a contradiction in Iraq between the relative stability in most of the country and the deadly attacks staged by insurgents in some places.

Rumsfeld, who was in Brussels for a two-day NATO defence ministers' meeting, was asked to respond to critics who argue there is a deepening cycle of violence in Iraq.

"What you have in Iraq ... is a contradiction," he told a news conference. "There's no question but that there are periodic incidents where people are being killed and wounded. We know that," he said.

"We also know that the schools are open, that the hospitals are open, the clinics are open, that people are engaged in economic activity throughout the country, and that the vast majority of the country is not in conflict, it is in a relatively stable circumstance."

Rumsfeld was speaking after a weekend of extreme violence in Iraq. US troops smashed coordinated ambushes on armoured convoys carrying large amounts of cash in Samarra yesterday, and US officials said 54 guerrillas were killed.

A series of guerrilla ambushes across Iraq over the weekend killed seven Spanish intelligence agents, two South Korean contractors, two Japanese diplomats and a Colombian contractor.

At least 74 US soldiers were killed in action in November, making it the deadliest month for the American army since the start of the war that ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

US defence officials have said most of the violence is in the "Sunni Triangle" north of Baghdad, but the resistance has expanded its activities and has carried out more attacks on Iraqis who are cooperating with the US-led forces.

"There are a limited number of people who are determined to kill innocent men, women and children who are connected to the coalition ... or who are innocent Iraqis," Rumsfeld said.

"Those people are also being rounded up, captured, killed, wounded and interrogated, and that process is taking place."

US General Peter Pace, the second highest-ranking US military officer, told the same news conference it was impossible to gauge, on the basis of the firefight in Samarra, whether the insurgents were changing tactics.

Previously, US forces have rarely met large concentrations of enemy fighters.

"It's hard to tell on the basis of one attack exactly what tactics may or may not be changing," Pace told the briefing.



Iraq: After Saddam