This news from Baghdad. Iraq’s transitional prime minister Ibrahim al Jaafari has called for what he called the speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. He made his comments at a news conference with US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who made an unannounced visit to the Iraqi capital.

• Ibrahim al Jaafari, Iraqi Interim Prime Minister:
  The great desire of the Iraqi people is to see the coalition forces be on their way out as they (new Iraqi security forces) take more responsibility.
• Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defense:
  “As the (Iraqi prime) minister (Ibrahim Jaafari) said, we had a good discussion about the progress being made with respect to the Iraqi security forces and our common interest in seeing them develop to the point where they can take over full responsibility for security here in Iraq.”