US: Leaving Iraq now would be like giving post-war Germany back to the Nazis, US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said in an article marking the third anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.
Writing in the Washington Post, Mr Rumsfeld said that, if America retreats now, "Saddamists and terrorists" would fill the vacuum in Iraq.
"Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis. It would be as great a disgrace as if we had asked the liberated nations of eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination because it was too hard or too tough, or we didn't have the patience to work with them as they built free countries," he wrote.
Claiming that terrorists were losing in Iraq, Mr Rumsfeld said that most Iraqis wanted the country to remain whole and to avoid ethnic conflict. He said that 75 per cent of military operations in Iraq now involved Iraqi forces, allowing US troops to step back into a supporting role.
"The rationale for a free and democratic Iraq is as compelling today as it was three years ago.
"A free and stable Iraq will not attack its neighbours, will not conspire with terrorists, will not pay rewards to the families of suicide bombers and will not seek to kill Americans," he wrote.
Vice-president Dick Cheney yesterday rejected a suggestion by former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi that Iraq was now in a state of civil war.
Mr Cheney said that terrorists were encouraging sectarian violence and seeking to undermine Iraq's new democratic institutions.
"What we've seen is a serious effort by them to foment a civil war. But I don't think they've been successful," he told CBS.
Mr Cheney denied that his own optimistic statements about Iraq - including a prediction that US forces would be greeted as liberators and a declaration last year that the insurgency was in its last throes - had contributed to the American public's scepticism about the war.
The vice-president blamed the news media for focusing excessively on bad news from Iraq. "There is a constant sort of perception, if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad. It's not all the work that went on that day in 15 other provinces," he said.
Gen George Casey, America's top military commander in Iraq, admitted yesterday that the insurgency had been more robust than he had expected. He said that Iraq was not now in a state of civil war but acknowledged that sectarian violence could worsen to that point.
"The situation here is fragile. I suspect it will remain fragile here until we get a new government, a government of national unity, formed," Gen Casey told NBC's Meet the Press.
Democratic congressman John Murtha, a leading critic of the war, told the same programme that the time had come for a change in the Bush administration's policy and a redeployment of US forces.
"We have to say to the Iraqis, 'This is your war. This is no longer our war.
"You've got an elected government. This is up to you now to settle this thing," he said.
Former US secretary of state James Baker was named last week as joint chairman of a 10-member, independent taskforce to assess the situation in Iraq and find "long-term viable alternatives" to current policy.
The White House has promised to help the group to "provide an independent look at the way forward in Iraq".
A new CNN/USA Today poll shows that only 22 per cent of Americans believe that the US is certain of success in Iraq, down from 79 per cent when the war started. Six out of 10 people say it was not worth going to war in Iraq and 58 per cent believe the war has had a negative effect on life in the US. Almost nine out of 10 people say they have prayed for those affected by the war and half have cried because of something related to the war.