Rumsfeld suppresses 'insurgent' ("an epiphany")

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has decided to avoid using the word "insurgent" to describe the Iraqis fighting US and Iraqi forces in Iraq.

Rumsfeld told reporters Tuesday the switch was the result of "an epiphany" he had over the weekend.

"I thought to myself, 'You know, that gives them greater legitimacy than they seem to merit," he said.

"Why would you call (Al-Qaeda's frontman in Iraq Abu Musab al-)Zarqawi and his people insurgents against a legitimate Iraqi government with their own constitution. Do they have broad popular support in that country? No."

When General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, couldn't think of a better word than insurgents to use at a Pentagon press conference, Rumsfeld jumped in.

"Enemies of the legitimate Iraqi government. How's that?" he said.

Webster's New International Dictionary defines "insurgency" as "a condition of revolt against a legitimate government, not reaching the proportions of an organized revolutionary government, and not recognized as a belligerency."

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