Rice makes surprise visit
Salahaddin, IraqMay 16, 2005

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Iraq yesterday to support the new Government grappling with an explosion of violence since it was formed last month.

Iraqi authorities yesterday said they had discovered the bodies of 23 people who had been killed execution-style and then dumped. Police said they had found the bodies of 13 people who were shot dead and left in a garbage dump in Baghdad. The corpses of 10 Iraqi soldiers killed by insurgents have also been found in the western city of Ramadi, the Defence Ministry said.
Insurgents have killed thousands of Iraqi security force members with suicide bombings or in ambushes where they are shot or beheaded.

Dr Rice said she wanted to discuss ways to move the political process forward to help quell an insurgency that has killed more than 400 people in just over two weeks. "The insurgency is very violent, but you defeat insurgencies not just militarily - in fact, not especially militarily - you defeat them by having a political alternative that is strong," she said.

The Iraqis . . . are now going to have to intensify their efforts to demonstrate that in fact the political process is the answer for the Iraqi people."

Dr Rice flew to Iraq in secret and under tight security, landing in Arbil in Kurdish northern Iraq. Later she flew to Salahaddin in a helicopter to meet Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

· A militant group that claims to have kidnapped a Japanese man has released a new video apparently showing the ambush that led to his capture and the killing of four other foreign workers.

· The US Marines concluded their offensive into insurgent strongholds in western Iraq on Saturday, saying they had pushed guerillas out of villages and towns where they had become entrenched. But they admitted that many of the fighters had escaped.
- agencies

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Iraq/Rice-makes-surprise-visit/2005/05/15/1116095852392.html