WASHINGTON, Dec 10: A US journalist travelling with a Tennessee National Guard unit worked with soldiers to develop remarks about troop safety made to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during his stop in Kuwait on Wednesday, his newspaper revealed on Friday.

In an e-mail to colleagues that was later published on the Internet, Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Edward Lee Pitts recalled that he knew that only military personnel, and not the press, would be allowed to speak with Mr Rumsfeld.

"Beforehand, we worked on questions to ask Rumsfeld about the appalling lack of armour their vehicles going into combat have," Mr Pitts said in the e-mail, explaining that he had also arranged for the soldiers he was with to be called on during the question-and-answer session.

During a visit to Kuwait on Wednesday, Mr Rumsfeld faced one of the toughest question-and-answer sessions with troops since the start of the Iraq invasion in March last year.

"Our vehicles are not armoured. We are digging up pieces of rusting scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass that has already been shot up, dropped, busted, taking the best for our vehicles to take into combat," Tennessee National Guard member Jerry Wilson commented to Mr Rumsfeld.

The Pentagon deemed the journalist's interference in an exchange between Rumsfeld and US soldiers "unfortunate". In his e-mail, Mr Pitts gushed: "I just had one of my best days as a journalist." -AFP