US: President George W. Bush said yesterday that he believed most of Fallujah was "returning to normal" with only "pockets of resistance" left to be mopped up by Marines.
As he spoke, TV news channels in the US showed Fallujah being shaken by a series of explosions and gunfire as American forces attacked with helicopter gunships and fighter jets.
The US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, yesterday praised countries which had not chosen "appeasment" and had decided to stay with the US-led coalition.
"With the exception of Spain and Honduras, these countries have been very very stand-up," he said after briefing members of Congress. Other nations had made a judgment "that they don't believe appeasement is a good idea, that you can make a separate peace with terror".
Emerging in some agitation from a clearly-heated briefing session, Mr Rumsfeld held up a large colour photograph, apparently taken inside a mosque in the city of Najaf, which showed stacks of rocket-propelled grenades, and said with heavy irony: "They have all kinds of religious instruments."
Mr Bush, speaking after a meeting with the Swedish Prime Minister, Mr Goran Persson, told reporters: "What you must realise is happening in a place like Fallujah is, the closer we come to passing sovereignty, the more likely it is that foreign fighters, disgruntled Baathists or friends of the Shia cleric will try to stop progress.
"That's what's happening. They want to kill innocent life to try to get us to quit. And we're not going to. And our military commanders will take whatever action is necessary to secure Fallujah on behalf of the Iraqi people."
The President reaffirmed that sovereignty would be transferred to Iraq on June 30th and praised the UN envoy, Mr Lakhtar Brahimi, for laying the groundwork for this.
Mr Brahimi, who is in New York to report to the UN Security Council on his efforts to form a caretaker government in Iraq by June 30th, said that he was disappointed by the US assault on Falluja. However, despite the "extremely worrying" security situation, he expected that an interim government of non-party technocrats would be chosen by the end of May, four weeks before it would take office.
The Security Council welcomed Mr Brahimi's "provisional ideas", which included a national unity conference in July of at least 1,000 people to elect a "consultative council" to provide advice to the caretaker government.
The US and the UK are currently drawing up a Security Council resolution which would give recognition to the caretaker government, which will have no control over security or any law-making powers.