US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld discourgaged residents of Basra this evening from rising up against the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, suggesting that US and British forces were not in a position to help them against pro-regime gunmen in the city.
"I guess those of us my age remember uprising in Eastern Europe in the mid 1950s when they rose up and they were slaughtered," he said.
"I am very careful about encouraging people to rise up. We know there are people in those cities ready to shoot them if they try to rise up, we know there are people in that city who will kill them if they try to leave," he said.
His comments came amid reports that Iraqi protesters in the city came under mortar fire from forces loyal to Baghdad.
Mr Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Baghdad had sent into the city members of the Special Republican Guard and Fedayeen Saddam, an armed militia used for internal repression.
"Unless you are ready to deal with that, then I am very reluctant to go around the world encouraging people to rise up," Mr Rumsfeld said.
"Let there be no doubt: these are an oppressed people," he said. "But I hope and pray they'll do it at a time when there are sufficent forces nearby to be helpful to them."
AFP