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Rumsfeld: U.S. contacted insurgents

The defense secretary says it was helping Iraq reach Sunni Arabs, adding that it could take years to beat the insurgency.

LONDON - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged Sunday that U.S. officials met with insurgents in Iraq, after a British newspaper reported two such meetings took place recently at a villa north of Baghdad.

Insurgent commanders "apparently came face to face" with four American officials during meetings on June 3 and June 13 at a villa near Balad, some 25 miles north of Baghdad, the Sunday Times reported.

When asked on NBC's Meet the Press about the report of the two meetings, Rumsfeld said, "Oh, I would doubt it. I think there have probably been many more than that."

Rumsfeld, making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows, also said he is bracing for even more violence in Iraq and acknowledged that the insurgency "could go on for any number of years."

Defeating the insurgency may take as long as 12 years, he said, with Iraqi security forces, not U.S. and foreign troops, taking the lead and finishing the job.

Three militant groups denied that they had ever negotiated with U.S. or Iraqi officials to end the insurgency.

In statements on Web sites, al-Qaida in Iraq and the Ansar al-Sunnah Army said their fight was not only about ending the occupation in Iraq, but about upholding their religion.

Rumsfeld insisted the talks did not involve negotiations with Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who heads al-Qaida in Iraq, but were rather facilitating efforts by the Shiite-led government to reach out to minority Sunni Arabs, who are believed to be the driving force behind the insurgency.

"We see the government of Iraq is sovereign. They're the ones that are reaching out to the people who are not supporting the government," Rumsfeld said from Washington.

Ansar al-Sunnah Army said that even when the Americans leave, their associates in the Iraqi government would remain in Iraq and would be targeted.

The top U.S. commander in the Persian Gulf, Gen. John Abizaid, said U.S. officers and diplomats "have been talking with a broad range of people from the Sunni Arab community, some of whom obviously have some links to the insurgency."

"The Sunnis need to be part of the political future," Abizaid, also in Washington, told CBS's Face the Nation . "This doesn't mean that we're talking to people like Zarqawi or people that are linked up with his organization."

The Sunday Times report, which quoted unidentified Iraqis whose groups were purportedly involved in the meetings, said the insurgents at the first meeting included the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Iraq and a Christmas attack that killed 22 people in the dining hall of a U.S. base at Mosul.

But in its Internet statement, the group said that it hadn't met with any "crusader or renegade" and said that jihad, "holy war," was the only way to retrieve the "grace and dignity" of the Muslim nation.

Two other groups mentioned were Mohammed's Army and the Islamic Army in Iraq, which in August reportedly killed an Italian journalist, the newspaper said. The Islamic Army in Iraq denied any meeting with U.S. officials, saying on a Web site that "lies" were spread to cause division and sedition among the fighters.

Rumsfeld did not provide details about any meetings, saying the insurgency had many layers, ranging from disaffected Sunni members of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime to foreign-born terrorists.

"There's no one negotiating with Zarqawi or the people that are out chopping people's heads off," he said.

He also played down the significance of the report.

"I would not make a big deal out of it. Meetings go on frequently with people," Rumsfeld told Fox News Sunday .

The U.S. officials tried to gather information about the structure, leadership and operations of the insurgent groups, which irritated some members, who had been told the talks would consider their main demand: a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, the newspaper said.

U.S. and Iraqi officials also are considering amnesty for their enemies as they look for ways to end the country's rampant insurgency and isolate extremists wanting to start a civil war.

"I would anticipate you're going to see an escalation of violence between now and the December elections" to choose a full-term government in Iraq, the Pentagon chief told Meet the Press . And after then, it will take a long time to drive out insurgents.

"Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years," Rumsfeld said on Fox News Sunday .

"Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency. We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency," he said.

Rumsfeld said Iraq's security forces have gained respect among Iraqis. He suggested insurgents' ability to kill in large numbers did not indicate a decline in public support for efforts by the U.S. and Iraqi governments, or that political, economic and security progress has been lacking.

"It doesn't take a genius to go blow up a restaurant or attack a police station, a suicide bomber. You can kill - a kid with a suicide vest can kill a lot of people," Rumsfeld said.

"Does that mean that the population is "going south' and there's no plan and no progress? No, it doesn't mean that at all," he said.

Rumsfeld defended Vice President Dick Cheney's recent statement that the insurgents are in their "last throes," saying there are many ways to measure their strength.

"If you look up "last throes,' it can mean a violent last throe," Rumsfeld said on ABC's This Week . Violence may escalate, he said, because insurgents "have so much to lose between now and December," he said.

On Sunday, suicide bombers struck a police headquarters, an army base and a hospital around Mosul, Iraq, killing 33 people in a setback to efforts to rebuild the northwestern city's police force that was riven by intimidation from insurgents seven months ago.

At least 14 people were killed in attacks elsewhere in Iraq, including a U.S. soldier whose convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in Baghdad and six Iraqi soldiers who were gunned down outside their base north of the capital.

The attacks in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, started early Sunday when a suicide bomber with explosives hidden beneath watermelons in a pickup slammed into a police station. U.S. Army Capt. Mark Walter said 10 policemen and two civilians were killed.

Less than two hours later, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the parking lot of an Iraqi army base on Mosul's outskirts, killing 16 people, Walter said. Most of the victims were civilian workers arriving at the site, he said.

A third attacker strapped with explosives walked into Mosul's Jumhouri Teaching Hospital in the afternoon and blew himself up in a room used by police guarding the facility, killing five policemen.

The U.S. soldier was killed and two were wounded when a roadside bomb struck a U.S. convoy, Sgt. 1st Class David Abrams said.

[Last modified June 27, 2005, 01:06:48]