U.S. says Iraqis may fight rebels for years

Alastair Macdonald, Reuters, Sun Jun 26, 2005 03:10 PM ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday that American forces would not defeat Iraq's rebels but would make way for Iraqis to put down an insurgency that could go on for a decade or more.

His remarks came on another day of bloodshed in which three suicide attacks around the northern city of Mosul killed more than two dozen people, highlighting the task faced by Iraq's U.S.-trained forces in overcoming a Sunni Arab revolt, backed by foreign Islamists, against the new Shi'ite-led government.
"That insurgency can go on for any number of years," Rumsfeld told Fox News.
"Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years. Foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency.