Simi Valley (California), Oct 11: US Defence Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld said he was surprised by the effectiveness of Saddam Hussein's loyalists to sustain the Iraq conflict long after the end of major combat operations. He called the continuing fighting serious but described it as low intensity. Fear instilled in the Iraqi people by the ousted leader's former paramilitary force is contributing to the situation, he told an audience of more than 500 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library yesterday. "I suppose on reflection the thing that probably surprised me the most is the ability that the so-called Fedayeen Saddam people had to terrorise and frighten the rest of the Iraqi people and cause them to not come over to the other side," Rumsfeld said in answer to a question from the audience. Two US soldiers were killed in an ambush in Iraq yesterday, bringing to 94 the number of American soldiers killed by hostile fire in Iraq since President George W Bush declared an end to major combat on May 01. Rumsfeld said coalition forces made 1,700 patrols daily in Iraq and only a tenth of 1 per cent involved any kind of armed conflict. "It is a very low-intensity situation, percentage-wise, nonetheless people are getting killed," Rumsfeld said.
Bureau Report