US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld said this evening that Iraqi opposition leaders visiting Washington seem to agree on the principles of a democratic Iraq to take shape after President Saddam Hussein's downfall.
Rumsfeld, who talked with opposition leaders on Saturday, said they generally voiced "broad agreement ... that a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq ... be a country where there is respect for minorities, there is rule of law, where people have an opportunity to participate in their government and in the way their government behaves and does things."
The opposition leaders, whose top-level meetings with US officials signify the new weight the Bush administration gives to these groups, also agreed that Iraq should be a single country, without weapons of mass destruction, that would not impose its will on its neighbors, Rumsfeld said.
Rumsfeld said he and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with the Iraqi opposition leaders, and that the group also had meetings with State Department officials including Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as a video conference with Vice President Dick Cheney.
The meetings were "very useful and constructive," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing.