Rumsfeld says Iraqi needs may grow

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld says he wants senior commanders in Iraq to consider whether the Pentagon underestimated how many U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces would be needed before a sovereign Iraqi government can take over next summer.

Rumsfeld, who spent Saturday in Iraq, said he alone has raised doubts about whether the current goal of about 220,000 Iraqi security forces would be adequate, but he asked commanders to review their estimates. He was interviewed on the flight to Washington, arriving early Sunday after a weeklong trip that also included a stop in Afghanistan.

"I raised that question not because I have conviction that we need more, but because I worry that budgets will begin to get committed, and we may not know if we need more until sometime, for example, in February or March or April," he said. By then, he said, the money might not be available.

"I'm concerned that we might not have the option of increasing if, in fact, that proves to be necessary," he said.

The number of Iraqis now in uniform is now said to be about 140,000, many of whom were rushed through training programs. The importance of building up those forces to perform duties now done by the U.S. military was a major theme of Rumsfeld's visit to Iraq. He sees it as the key to completing the military mission there in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's deposed dictatorship.

Guerrillas, meanwhile, killed a U.S. soldier with a roadside bomb in northern Iraq on Sunday, and a U.S. military commander said rebel attacks might not abate even if American troops kill or capture Saddam Hussein.

A soldier from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division died and two others in his unit were wounded when rebels detonated a bomb as a their convoy drove through the center of Mosul at midday, Master Sgt. Kelly Tyler said.

"I heard an explosion and came running toward the site of the attack and saw three soldiers, one of them covered with blood," said Bahaa Hussein, a student. Mosul is 250 miles north of Baghdad.

The top commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said attacks

could surge ahead of a July 1 deadline for a transfer of authority from the U.S.-led coalition to a transitional Iraqi government.

"We expect to see an increase in violence as we move forward toward sovereignty at the end of June," Sanchez said.