BAGHDAD, 25 December 2004 — US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld paid a surprise visit to Mosul, and promised the US troops that no matter how bleak things might look at any one moment they will look back on their mission with pride.

“There’s no doubt in my mind, this is achievable,” Rumsfeld told troops just three days after the devastating attack on a US military dining hall.

“When it looks bleak, when one worries about how it’s going to come out, when one reads and hears the naysayers and the doubters who say it can’t be done, and that we’re in a quagmire here,” one should recall that there have been such doubters “throughout every conflict in the history of the world,” he told about 200 soldiers of the 1st Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division at their commander’s headquarters.

Traveling in secrecy amid tight security, Rumsfeld landed in pre-dawn darkness and immediately headed for a combat surgical hospital where many of the bombing victims were treated after Tuesday’s lunchtime attack on a mess tent. The most seriously wounded have already been transferred to a US military hospital in Germany.

Later in the day, Rumsfeld shared a Christmas Eve dinner with troops at a base outside of Baghdad. Wearing a plastic apron, he helped serve food to the troops and later told them as they ate that it would be dangerous to underestimate the power of the insurgency in Iraq.

“I don’t want in any way to paint a picture that is pretty,” he said.

Rumsfeld said he could not predict whether the level of violence would abate after the Jan. 30 elections but said the conflict now amounts to a test of will. “They are determined, but so are we,” he said. Rumsfeld met with Iraqi interim President Ghazi Al-Yawar while in Baghdad, and the two discussed the upcoming election.

“I have no doubt in my mind that we are going to succeed,” Al-Yawar said. “Our enemy is ruthless. It’s rootless and ruthless. But we are compassionate and deeply rooted in the Iraqi society and the world.”

At a stop in Tikrit, the hometown of deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Rumsfeld met with the commander of the 1st Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. John Batiste.

Batiste said that 90 percent of the threat in his area, which covers four provinces in northcentral and northeastern Iraq, is from former Baathist regime elements.

He told Rumsfeld the groundwork is being laid for successful elections in this part of Iraq, which is predominantly Sunni.

Standing under a bright sun on a brisk morning, Rumsfeld addressed a group of about 250 soldiers gathered outside Batiste’s headquarters, thanking them for their service and wishing them holiday greetings.

His third stop was in Fallujah, where Marine infantrymen fought with insurgents on Thursday as warplanes and tanks bombarded guerrilla positions in the heaviest fighting there in weeks.

However, all seemed quiet as he met with Marines at their main base outside the city yesterday.

“What’s taking place here is at a stage where a great many people doubt whether or not it can be accomplished,” he said, reprising the theme he struck in Mosul.

But he reminded about 200 Marines eating lunch in a mess hall adorned with several small plastic trees and homemade Christmas decorations that repressive regimes in Germany and the former Soviet Union had been removed and said he was confident freedom would prevail in Iraq.

“All I can say is, people basically want to be free,” he said to cheers and applause in the refurbished brick and plaster Iraqi building.

Indeed, the 72-year-old defense chief was greeted warmly by the troops at each stop. He spent a lot of time shaking hands and posing with a number of soldiers who wanted to have their picture taken with him.

He also took questions from the crowds at each stop, but none had the critical edge that he ran into in Kuwait on his most recent visit to the region.

During his brief stop at the 67th Combat Surgical Hospital in Mosul, Rumsfeld presented a Purple Heart medal to Sgt. Chris Scott, who was wounded a day earlier. He also thanked the hospital’s staff for their work in treating the dozens of wounded from Tuesday’s attack at the mess hall, located near the base’s airfield.

Out of concern for security, Rumsfeld’s aides went to unusual lengths to keep his visit a secret prior to his arrival, with only a few reporters and one TV crew accompanying him on an overnight flight from Washington.

— With input from agencies