US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on a one-day trip to Iraq told US and Iraqi soldiers on Friday that Iraqis, not Americans, will have to defeat the "continuing insurgency" in the country.
Rumsfeld spoke to troops in Mosul in northern Iraq before departing for Baghdad and meetings with US and Iraqi officials and a review of Iraq's security forces.
In his address at the Mosul airfield, Rumsfeld told American troops "you have shown that America is in fact a land of liberators, not a land of occupiers." However, he added, "It is the Iraqis who have to over time defeat the insurgency."
He spoke after presenting the Army Commendation Medal to a group of Iraqi and American soldiers.
Rumsfeld also visited a combat hospital in Mosul, and spoke briefly with Sgt. Sean Ferguson, a California native who was shot in the hand by a sniper. Ferguson was awarded his second Purple Heart for the wound. Rumsfeld daylong visit was not announced publicly in advance for security reasons.
© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
