Rumsfeld bids farewell to troops in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Iraq)—Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld paid a surprise visit to Iraq over the weekend and said American forces should not quit the war until the enemy is defeated.
Just days after a U.S. bipartisan commission called the situation here “grave and deteriorating” and called for a major shift in U.S. government policy, Rumsfeld showed no sign on Saturday of backing down from his long-standing position that insurgent groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq must be crushed.
“We feel great urgency to protect the American people from another 9/11 or a 9/11 times two or three. At the same time, we need to have the patience to see this task through to success. The consequences of failure are unacceptable,” Rumsfeld told more than 1,200 soldiers and Marines at Al-Asad, a sprawling air base in Anbar province, the large area of western Iraq that is an insurgent stronghold. “The enemy must be defeated.”
Rumsfeld, whose tenure at the Pentagon came under criticism in the Iraq Study Group report, was continuing to meet with U.S. troops in Iraq on Sunday, the military said. At least 2,930 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, many in and around Baghdad, and in hard-hit Anbar cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi.—Agencies