Rumsfeld Meets Marines in Surprise Visit

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld greeted U.S. Marines at this dusty airfield in Iraq’s western desert this morning on his first visit to Iraq since its interim government was installed in June.

Rumsfeld had breakfast with senior Marine leaders and planned to give a pep talk and field questions at a “town hall” meeting of about 1,500 Marines.

It was Rumsfeld’s sixth trip to Iraq since the war began but his first to Al Anbar province, which includes portions of the so-called Sunni Triangle north and west of Baghdad. Once the heart of tribal support for deposed President Saddam Hussein, the region is now an insurgent stronghold. In Al Anbar, U.S. forces have clashed with fighters in the capital, Ramadi, and the city of Fallouja, where Marines fought fierce battles last spring.

The insurgency in Iraq has claimed the lives of U.S. troops at the rate of more than one per day.

For security reasons, Rumsfeld’s trip was not announced in advance. Reporters traveling with the Defense secretary were instructed not to disclose his travel plans until he arrived here from Bahrain aboard an Air Force C-17 cargo plane.

Rumsfeld’s last first trip to Iraq was in May, when he made a one-day visit to the Abu Ghraib prison, the focus of a prisoner abuse scandal that is playing out in military courts.

Rumsfeld on Saturday met with defense chiefs from 18 nations aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier in the central Persian Gulf.

He said that 40,000 new Iraqi recruits might join the country’s fledgling security forces before elections scheduled for January.