Reply #3: related article: Rumsfeld Says U.S. Faces Test of Wills in Iraq

[UpInArms]

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6459899

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday the United States and its allies were engaged in a test of wills with insurgents in Iraq and would have to overcome the "pain and ugliness" of the conflict.

"They know they cannot defeat us militarily," Rumsfeld told about 1,500 marines gathered at an airbase in Iraq's western desert, where he arrived for a brief visit.

"But they are hoping they can win the test of wills.

"It's a battle of perception. They are hoping to cause members of the coalition to decide that the pain and the ugliness and the difficulty of the task is simply too great."

The U.S. military has about 138,000 troops in Iraq, the vast majority of a 160,000-strong coalition force which is battling to suppress an insurgency that has strengthened and deepened over the 18 months since Saddam Hussein's overthrow.

<snip>

As if to remind the U.S. defense secretary of the dangers in Iraq, a suicide car bomb killed 17 people, including seven women, near the Oil Ministry and a nearby police academy in Baghdad, a ministry spokesman said. Another bomber attacked a U.S. convoy, wounding one soldier and two Iraqis in the capital.

During his stop-over in western Iraq, Rumsfeld was peppered with questions by marines wondering when their deployments would be up. One asked if there was "any relief in sight."

<snip>

Rumsfeld, one of the chief architects of the war to overthrow Saddam, a man whose hand he once shook in the 1980s, was due to meet top U.S. commanders inside the Green Zone in central Baghdad, a heavily fortified complex that is regularly attacked by guerrillas firing rockets and mortars.

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I hope everyone that reads that article clicks on to page 2 - finally a decent Reuters report regarding the lies of this mal-administration.