WASHINGTON, March 28: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisted on Thursday that there would be no ceasefire in the war to oust and disarm Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
“I have no idea what some country might propose but there isn’t going to be a ceasefire,” Mr Rumsfeld said when questioned at a Senate committee.
The defence secretary also gave a new warning that bitter new fighting could be expected as US and British troops close in on Baghdad.
“The so-called Republican Guard forces are ringing Baghdad some 40-50 miles (65-80 kilometres) away from it, and very likely that will be some of the toughest fighting that will occur, and that’s yet ahead of us,” Mr Rumsfeld told reporters outside the committee.
He said the Republican Guard, elite units said to be fiercely loyal to Saddam Hussein, had also formed a ring around the president’s home city of Tikrit, in the north of Iraq.
“One has to recognize that the regular forces have been more inclined to not defend the regime to the end. And the Republican Guard have been more inclined to defend the regime, although that’s not 100 percent.”
Mr Rumsfeld said “it’s only reasonable to expect that it will require the coalition forces moving through some Republican Guard units and destroying them or capturing them before you’ll see the crumbling of the regime”.
He reaffirmed administration warnings of a long conflict and that US and British forces “are still closer to the beginning than the end”.
Backing the case for a request for 74.7 billion dollars in funding for the war at the Senate Appropriations Committee, Mr Rumsfeld declared that “while the conflict is well begun, it has only begun”.
The defence secretary hailed the “superb” performance of US and British forces during the week-long military engagement in Iraq. —AFP
