The U.S.-led war in Iraq was a historic success that will influence military spending and doctrine for decades, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told cheering troops Monday. The military, he said, used "an unprecedented combination of power, precision, speed, flexibility, and, I would add, compassion."
"Baghdad was liberated in less than a month, possibly the fastest march on a capital in modern military history," Rumsfeld said.
He spoke to hundreds of desert camoflage-clad troops in a warehouse in Qatar at the command headquarters for the Iraq campaign. Though the troops in Qatar were involved in command and logistics, not direct combat, they played a key role, the secretary said.
"You protected our country from a gathering danger and liberated the Iraqi people," Rumsfeld said. Later, he added: "You liberated a country, but how you did it will help transform the way we defend our country in the 21st century."
Rumsfeld also lashed out at early critics of the war.
"There were a lot of hand wringers around, weren't there?" Rumsfeld said in response to a question about commentators second-guessing the war. Rumsfeld said a Washington humorist told him, "Never have so many been so wrong about so much."
Rumsfeld said Turkey's decision to block the Army's 4th Infantry Division from invading northern Iraq from bases in Turkey was "disappointing."
Meanwhile, several hundred Iraqis, mostly Shi'ite Muslims, protested in the center of Baghdad saying Shi'ite clerics from the holy city of Najaf were not properly represented at a meeting of prominent Iraqis on Monday.
Some in the crowd outside the Palestine Hotel, the city's main media center, also raised banners in support of Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi, the former exile who declared himself mayor of Baghdad but was arrested by U.S. forces on Sunday.
Most demonstrators complained that Monday's meeting between leading Iraqis and Jay Garner, the retired U.S. general administering postwar Iraq, did not include representatives of the hawza -- or Shi'ite theological college -- in Najaf.
"The Shi'ite parties do not represent the hawza at Najaf," one cleric in the demonstration told Reuters. One banner said: "The hawza in Najaf must participate in the conference because it represents the people's opinions." (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
