Rumsfeld Drops in on Iraq Troops

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, paid a surprise visit to American troops in Iraq today, telling them the insurgency in the country could still be quashed.

Mr Rumsfeld, heavily criticised this week for using a machine to sign letters of condolence to the relatives of dead soldiers, visited forces wounded in a suicide attack in Mosul three days ago.

Twenty-two people died when a man, apparently dressed in Iraqi military uniform, entered a dining hall where American soldiers were eating and blew himself up, military authorities said.

While admitting the conflict in Iraq was at a grim stage, Mr Rumsfeld told soldiers he remained confident of defeating the insurgency and stabilising the country.

"There's no doubt in my mind this is achievable," he said. "When it looks bleak, when one worries about how it's going to come out, when one reads and hears the naysayers and the doubters who say it can't be done, and that we're in a quagmire here," one should recall that there have been such doubters "throughout every conflict in the history of the world", he told about 200 soldiers of the 1st Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division at their commander's headquarters.

Mr Rumsfeld landed before dawn and headed for a combat surgical hospital where many of the bombing victims were treated after Tuesday's lunchtime attack on a mess tent.

At a later stop in Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, Mr Rumsfeld met the commander of the 1st Infantry Division, General John Batiste, and was briefed on local preparations for national elections next month.

As Mr Rumsfeld was visiting Iraq, it emerged an assessment by senior US intelligence officials had concluded insurgents had been able to "operate at will" in the north of the country. A report, seen by the Guardian, catalogues a series of errors and missed opportunities in intelligence gathering, recruitment and operational matters on the behalf of allied forces. The assessment was compiled last month after most of Mosul's police force deserted or defected and parts of the city briefly fell to insurgents.

In an interview on a cargo plane before arriving in Mosul, Mr Rumsfeld said he had been planning to visit US troops in Iraq long before the deadly attack this week.

The blast on Tuesday was the deadliest single attack on a US base in Iraq. Fourteen members of the US services were among the dead.

Iraqis enter US bases as employees of civilian contractors providing services such as laundry, catering, and rubbish collection. Jeremy Redmon, a reporter from the Richmond Times-Dispatch embedded with troops at the Mosul base, told CNN yesterday that Iraqi workers had to show identification to get in but could then move with relative freedom.

Mr Rumsfeld's visit to Mosul came as US marines engaged in the heaviest fighting in weeks in Falluja, west of Baghdad, the focus of intense combat between US forces and militants last month. At least three marines were killed yesterday in fighting as refugees from the city were being encouraged to return home by US and Iraqi authorities.