US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met top US commanders this morning at their new base in Baghdad, a lake palace of ousted president Saddam.
Mr Rumsfeld landed around 9 a.m. (Irish time) at Baghdad international airport, scene of heavy fighting during the war, on the first tour of Iraq by a top US official following the collapse of Saddam's regime on April 9th.
Driving past buildings on the perimeter of the airport that had been destroyed in US bombing, the secretary set off in a convoy of Humvees and other military vehicles.
Shadowed by reconaissance helicopters, the convoy pulled up at the sand-coloured Abu Ghraib palace which stands in the middle of an artificial lake.
The palace has been taken over as the new base of coalition ground forces in Iraq and codenamned Cobra base.
Mr Rumsfeld met there with coalition ground forces commander Gen David McKiernan, who accompanied him from the southern city of Basra, Fifth Corps commander Lieut Gen William Wallace, retired Lieutenant Gen Jay Garner, who heads the US civilian administration in Iraq, Maj Gen Buford Blount, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, and Maj Gen Del Dailey, commander of US special forces in Iraq.
The secretary also planned to visit a power plant in southern Baghdad to underscore coalition efforts to get services back to normal for the population of five million. Nearly three weeks after the fighting ended many parts of Iraq are still without electricity and clean water.
Mr Rumsfeld, on a Middle East tour that has already taken him to Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, spent the morning in Basra, where he thanked coalition troops for toppling Saddam Hussein and declared Iraqis free from a "truly brutal, vicious regime".
Maj Gen Robin Brimm, commander of the British 1st Armoured Division which controls the region around Basra, cautioned Mr Rumsfeld on the importance of fixing up services.