Rumsfeld met Allawi in Baghdad

The US defense secretary met in Baghdad on Friday with the interim Iraqi prime minister Eyad Allawi in a sudden visit to Iraq during which he stressed that the mission of the American forces there will take some time and that the Iraqis have to be prepared for that.

Rumsfeld who visited earlier Musil city said that the American forces will return back home with their heads high after the Iraqis defeat the resistance.

Rumsfeld, who is considered the highest official in the American administration to visit Iraq since the elections of January 30, stressed that training of the Iraqi security forces is the mission which occupied the priority of the American soldiers at the meantime.

Rumsfeld arrived in Iraq from Nice, France, where he took part in the meeting of NATO defense ministers on training of the Iraqi security forces and directly headed for a field hospital to invest orders of merit to injured American soldiers.