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US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday that the United States would not declare an early victory in Iraq even as US military commanders claimed to have controlled most of Baghdad and other major cities.
Asked when US forces could declare victory and whether it would depend on capturing or killing Saddam at a Pentagon press briefing, Rumsfeld said that complete victory would come "later rather than sooner, simply because it's a big country."
"It seems to me that takes a little bit of time, so I don't think there will be a likely early declaration of that time," he said.
But the defense secretary stressed that he does not think the US victory in Iraq "will necessarily hinge on Saddam Hussein."
"At the point where he (Saddam) is not running his country, the regime has been changed," Rumsfeld said.
US tanks and armored vehicles rumbled into Baghdad earlier Monday, storming one of Saddam's main presidential palaces and destroying symbols of the Iraqi government.
(Xinhua News Agency April 8, 2003)
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