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Rumsfeld 'correctly' warned of years of Iraq insurgency - Reid

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, July 4, IRNA
UK Reid-Iraq
Britain's Defence Secretary John Reid admitted Monday that he sees no respite in the violence in Iraq but is hopeful that the country's own forces will be able to take charge within a year.

"The insurgency in Iraq may go on for some considerable time," Reid said when asked whether he agreed with US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recent warning that it could go on for years.

But the UK Defence Secretary, who took over the post from Geoff Hoon six weeks ago, insisted that there was "a second question and that is: Who will lead the security efforts against the insurgency?" "I think in a relatively short period of time we can start the process of that being led by the Iraqi security forces themselves," he said in an interview with BBC Radio Four's flagship current affairs programme, Today.

Last week, Rumsfeld also told Fox News that the US was switching the onus to create what he called "an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency." "Although Donald Rumsfeld may have said, correctly, that this may take years before it is finally completed, that did not imply that all that period will have to be led by the multi-national forces or the British forces," the UK Defence Secretary insisted.

He said that he personally thought that "within a year we could begin that transition to the Iraqi forces leading the effort themselves."
But Reid also repeated his government's promise that British troops would not pull out of Iraq until they were asked by the Iraqi government.

He said the US-UK coalition was involved in a "major struggle" against the insurgency. But he argued there had been "huge progress" and that it was "precisely because that is getting better, the terrorists are getting more frantic, more furious and more fanatic." "The massacres and the murders that are taking place are precisely because they wish to make sure that the progress is stopped. That is the big strategic battle that is going on at the moment," the British Defence Secretary said.

HC/1416