It will take time to oust die-hard remnants of Saddam Hussein's deposed regime in Iraq, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday.
During a joint news conference with Portuguese Minister of Defense, Paulo Portas, Rumsfeld said Washington is talking to more than three-dozen countries about assembling an international peacekeeping force for postwar Iraq, but that even after the force begins arriving in September there will be resistance from elements of Saddam's Baathist Party andother loyalists.
"Do I think that's going to disappear in the next month or two or three? No. Will it disappear when some two or three divisions of coalition forces arrive in the country? No. "It will take time to root out the remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime and we intend to do it." Rumsfeld stated.
Rumsfeld added that the intelligence on Iraq was not politicized and the assessment that Baghdad possessed weapons of mass destruction will ultimately prove correct. (Albawaba.com)
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