WASHINGTON, June 28: US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday called on Americans to be patient in the face of mounting US casualties in Iraq as US forces attempt to secure and start rebuilding the country.

“I would say to the American people that we always recognized this would be a dangerous operation,” Mr Powell said in an interview on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” programme.

“And even though major combat action is over... we always expected there would be this residual problem of Fedayeen, of the Baath Party members, of old Saddam cronies and others who are coming in to make mischief, and they would have to be dealt with,” Mr Powell said.

“I hope the American people will demonstrate the patience and the understanding of the situation,” he added.

“My experience with the American people is when they know it’s going to be tough and it’s going to take a while, they will give us that patience and give us that understanding as we work our way through this.”

The Pentagon announced on Friday that 60 US soldiers had died in Iraq since President George Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1. Twenty were killed in hostile fire, while 40 deaths were not combat-related.

The secretary of state said he hoped the mounting casualty toll would not increase pressure to withdraw US troops from Iraq prematurely.

“I hope it does not. I hope it increases the pressure on us to get the security situation under control more quickly,” he said.

“We’re not going to be pushed out,” he insisted. “We have the ability to get on top of the security situation.”

To stabilize Iraq and get rid of the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s government, a large number of US troops must remain in Iraq “for months”, Mr Powell said. “I can’t be more precise than that because we don’t know,” he said.

“But what the president said is that we will do what is necessary. And that means keeping a significant presence there, not only of US troops getting in (but of) non-US troops to assist us.—AFP