US says Iraq insurgency undiminished in past year
26 Apr 2005 19:49:44 GMTSource:
Reuters
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) - Iraq's insurgency remains undiminished in its capabilities in the past year despite U.S.-led efforts to crush the rebels, the top American general said on Tuesday.

"I think their capacity stays about the same," Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said of Iraq's insurgents during a Pentagon briefing. "And where they are right now is where they were almost a year ago"

Asked during the briefing "are we winning" the war, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not directly respond.

"The United States and the coalition forces, in my personal view, will not be the thing that will defeat the insurgency," Rumsfeld said.

"So, therefore, winning or losing is not the issue for 'we,' in my view, in the traditional, conventional context of using the word 'winning' and 'losing' in a war. The people that are going to defeat that insurgency are going to be the Iraqis."

After Rumsfeld finished, Myers interjected, "I'm going to say this: I think we are winning, OK? I think we're definitely winning. I think we've been winning for some time."

Twenty-five months after the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, the United States has 138,000 troops in Iraq battling a relentless insurgency and training Iraqi security forces.
The Pentagon said there have been 1,572 U.S. military deaths in the war, and another 12,174 U.S. troops have been wounded in combat

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