Skip to main content
U.S. Edition
Search
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
WORLD

Rumsfeld: Insurgency could last decade

Bush preparing major speech on anniversary of sovereignty

SPECIAL REPORT

• Interactive: Who's who in Iraq
• Interactive: Sectarian divide

YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS

Iraq

(CNN) -- U.S. President George W. Bush was preparing a major address on the Iraq war as his defense chief predicted the insurgency could last another decade.

Bush -- facing polls showing declining support among Americans for the war -- will deliver his speech from Fort Bragg, North Carolina on Tuesday, the one-year anniversary of the handover of sovereignty.

It follows comments by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Sunday that Iraqis, and not Americans, would defeat the insurgency -- but not for a long while.

"The insurgency could go on for any number of years," Rumsfeld said in a U.S. television interview. "Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years.

"Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency," he told Fox News. "We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win."

Rumsfeld said insurgents were trying to disrupt Iraq's transformation to democracy as leaders draft a constitution and plan for December elections to select a full-term government.

"I would anticipate you're going to see an escalation of violence between now and the December elections," he told NBC's "Meet the Press."

Rumsfeld's remarks came on another deadly day in Iraq. Three suicide bombings targeting Iraqi military and police stations killed more than 30 people, including 15 police officers, in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Sunday, U.S. military officials said. (More details)

The violence continued Monday, with attacks in two Baghdad neighborhoods leaving four Iraqi civilians dead, police said. (More details)

Rumsfeld and the commander of U.S. forces in the region, speaking on U.S. television talk shows Sunday, danced around questions about a report in the Sunday Times of London that U.S. officials were negotiating with insurgent leaders for an end to violence and a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal.

"I'm not sure that I would characterize it as a dialogue between U.S. officials and insurgents," Gen. John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, said on CNN's "Late Edition."

"I would say that U.S. officials and Iraqi officials are looking for the right people in the Sunni community to talk to in order to ensure that the Sunni Arab community ... becomes part of the political process," Abizaid said.

"And clearly we know that the vast majority of the insurgents are from the Sunni Arab community."

Rumsfeld said U.S. officials are talking to "people all across the spectrum, insurgents and opponents, people kind of leaning that way, people in the middle, people leaning toward the government and then the government."

"The goal is to get everyone moving in the right direction towards the government," he told ABC News. "There's all kinds of talks going on, and that's a good thing."

The two men carried similar messages on Sunday talk shows: that the United States would beat the insurgency, that the press is reporting only negative things about the war and that a timetable for withdrawal would be a mistake.

Abizaid said the insurgency would fail, twice calling U.S. forces "the shield behind which politics take place."

"This is not a quagmire," he said. "It is a marathon, and we're at about the 21st mile."

Abizaid appealed for public support of the soldiers and their mission.

"We don't need to fight this war looking over our shoulder worrying about the support back home," he told "Late Edition."

Mosul bombings

Fifteen police officers and 18 civilians were killed Sunday in Mosul, capping a deadly weekend in Iraq's third-largest city -- where insurgent violence has flared periodically since November.

Sixteen civilian laborers died Sunday morning in a blast in the parking lot of the Kasak army post, the U.S. military said.

A bombing at a police post outside Mosul's Jamahoori Hospital killed five police officers, military spokesmen said.

A bomb hidden under a pile of watermelons in a truck outside the al-Toob police station in western Mosul killed 10 police officers and two civilians, Iraqi police and U.S. military spokesmen said.

Despite the attacks, "policemen in Mosul have continued to man their posts," the U.S. military said. Most of Mosul's police force abandoned their posts after a series of attacks in mid-November.

The string of bombings began Saturday night when a suicide car bomb targeting an Iraqi police convoy killed seven people, U.S. military officials said.

Baghdad attacks

In Baghdad, attacks in two neighborhoods killed four Iraqi civilians, police told CNN Monday.

A bomb exploded Monday morning in front of the council office for the northern neighborhood of al-Adhamiya, killing a man and wounding his wife. Police said the attack took place around 9:30 a.m. (1:30 a.m. EDT).

About 11 hours earlier, gunmen killed three people after opening fire on a barbershop in the southeastern neighborhood of al-Jadida. Police said attackers then placed a bomb inside the shop and blew it up before making their escape. Three bodies charred bodies were found inside.

Al-Jadida is a section of Baghdad where Christians, and Sunni and Shiite Muslims live together.

Earlier Sunday, Deputy Police Chief Col. Riyadh Abdulkrim was killed when gunmen opened fire while he was driving to work in southeast Baghdad's Mashtal neighborhood, police said.

Two mortar rounds slammed into a residential area near a fire station in the eastern Baladiyat neighborhood, killing two Iraqi civilians and wounding two others, Iraqi police said Sunday.

A U.S. soldier was killed and two others were wounded Sunday when a roadside bomb exploded in Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

Deadly helicopter crash

A U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopter crashed northwest of Baghdad Monday morning, killing the two crew members on board, the military said.

The crash took place about 11 a.m. (3 a.m. ET) north of Taji -- about 20 miles (30 km) from Baghdad -- in central Iraq, the military said.

No cause of the crash was given, and the incident is under investigation.

Meanwhile, a U.S. Army soldier was killed Monday in the Iraqi capital while investigating a burning vehicle, the military said.

The soldier with Task Force Baghdad was hit by small-arms fire around 10:15 a.m. (2:15 a.m. ET).

The military said the soldier's unit was aiding Iraqi police at the scene of a vehicle fire when it came under attack.

The deaths of the three soldiers brought to 70 the number of American deaths in the month of June -- 403 so far this year and 1,737 since the start of the war in March 2003.

CNN's Jane Arraf, Jamie McIntyre, Mohammed Tawfeeq and Enes Dulami contributed to this report.

Story Tools
Click Here to try 4 Free Trial Issues of Time! cover
Top Stories
Get up-to-the minute news from CNN
CNN.com gives you the latest stories and video from the around the world, with in-depth coverage of U.S. news, politics, entertainment, health, crime, tech and more.
Top Stories
Get up-to-the minute news from CNN
CNN.com gives you the latest stories and video from the around the world, with in-depth coverage of U.S. news, politics, entertainment, health, crime, tech and more.
CNN U.S.
CNN TV E-mail Services CNN Mobile CNNAvantGo Ad Info About Us Preferences
Search
© 2007 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us. Site Map.
Offsite Icon External sites open in new window; not endorsed by CNN.com
Pipeline Icon Pay service with live and archived video. Learn more
Radio News Icon Download audio news  |  RSS Feed Add RSS headlines