WASHINGTON (Agencies): US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday that she was “proud” of the US decision to invade Iraq and said the Middle East had improved since President George W. Bush took office. In an interview with Bloomberg television, Rice also cited progress in North Korea and China as evidence that the Bush administration, which has just seven months left in office, had made strides over the past eight years. “I am proud by the decision of this administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein. I am proud of the liberation of 20 million Iraqis,” Rice said in the interview taped earlier in the week. “Iraq has been very tough. Tougher than any of us had dreamed. We can never replace the people who have been lost. We can never do anything to soothe the pain of the family and friends that they have left behind, but we are seeing a change in Iraq for the better,” she said.

The interview aired as the United States marked the Independence Day holiday. The US military has lost 4,113 personnel since the March 2003 invasion, according to independent website www.icasualties.org.
“In the post-9/11 environment, you could not let a threat to peace exist. I know that great historical events go through difficult phases and often emerge with the world left for the better.”
Rice said Iran had suffered “setbacks” and al-Qaeda was “on its heels,” while democracy had made a “breakthrough” with women voting in Kuwait, “democratic forces” emerging in the Palestinian territories and “a democracy at the center of the Arab world in Iraq.”
“We’re now beginning to see that perhaps it’s not so popular to be a suicide bomber. We’re beginning to see that perhaps people are questioning whether Osama bin Laden ought to really be the face of Islam,” she said.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Saturday that the country’s security forces have managed to save Baghdad from a “siege by terrorists” backed by foreign nations.
“When we took over Baghdad it was under siege, with all roads leading to neighbouring provinces controlled by terrorists. They had surrounded Baghdad from all sides, backed by the bad intentions of other countries,” Maliki told a gathering of top Iraqi and US officials including Washington’s envoy to Baghdad Ryan Crocker.
“We wanted these nations to support and assist us in stabilising the country but they were thinking of finishing Baghdad,” he said, without naming the countries.
“But Baghdad continues to stand,” the Shiite prime minister said in a speech marking the fifth anniversary of the killing of prominent Shiite leader Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim in a 2003 car bombing in the holy city of Najaf.
“Yes, there are still al-Qaeda militants left but they are being chased. We are hunting them. But we have been able to lift the siege of Baghdad.”
Baghdad was the epicentre of violence in Iraq when sectarian bloodshed broke out in early 2006.
Achieved
“Under the national unity government, the Iraqis have achieved national feats ... that are now lighting the course of our march,” said al-Maliki.
Bolstered by this confidence, the prime minister plans to visit the United Arab Emirates on Sunday and also Italy and Germany later in the month – apparently hoping improved security at home will pay dividends in greater international support.
Iraq is also enjoying a surge in oil revenue driven by record crude prices and the highest production levels since Saddam’s ouster. The government expects to earn a total of $70 billion from oil in 2008 if prices remain high.
Planning to put some of this money to work, the Iraqi government held a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday for a major project to refurbish the main road to the Baghdad airport. The road was once considered one of the most dangerous in the world but has become safer with the decline in violence in the country.
Despite recent gains, daily attacks continue throughout Iraq. Gunmen attacked a police patrol Saturday near Mosul, 225 miles (360 kms) northwest of Baghdad, killing one policeman, police said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Also Saturday, one policeman was killed and a passer-by was injured near Nasiriyah, 200 miles (320 kms) southeast of Baghdad, when a bomb attached to the policeman’s car exploded, police said, speaking on condition of anonymity for the same reason.
Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) Chairman and majority leader at the Iraqi Parliament Abdulaziz Al-Hakim on Saturday urged the government to open up to the world, at the same time as he called for Arab and regional countries to reopen their embassies here.
Brother of 2003 assassinated Shiite leader Mohammed Baqer Al-Hakim, the Iraqi leader said at a eulogy ceremony for his brother today that the government should open up to Arab, Islamic, regional and international countries, urging those in return to politically-examine what have been achieved in Iraq throughout the last five years.
The ceremony was attended by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Vice-President Adel Al-Abdulmahdi, Parliament Speaker Mahmoud Al-Mashahdani and Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, in addition to a number of politicians, officials and ambassadors to Iraq.
Urged
Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, a former top IRA guerrilla, urged Iraqis on Saturday to learn from the experience of his homeland, which suffered decades of sectarian conflict then found peace.
McGuinness was addressing a conference on national reconciliation in Baghdad that brought together politicians from across Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic divide.
The participants — who included prominent Iraqi politicians — issued a communique of principles at the end of the meeting that they said should be used to heal Iraq’s divisions.
McGuinness is an Irish Catholic nationalist and member of Sinn Fein, the political ally of the Irish Republic Army (IRA), which fought to expel British troops from Northern Ireland.
The Baghdad conference brought together Shiite and Sunni Arabs as well as Kurds. Delegates from South Africa, including businessman Cyril Ramaphosa, who played a role in talks to end apartheid, also attended the conference at a hotel in the heavily guarded Green Zone government compound.
Various power struggles are playing out in Iraq — the most recent an intra-Shiite battle pitting the Shiite-led government against the Mehdi Army of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
The government has launched a series of military operations against the Mehdi Army and Sunni insurgent groups that have helped drive violence to a four-year low.
But many Iraqis say true reconciliation will take years to achieve, given the extent of of the sectarian conflict in 2006 and 2007 that killed tens of thousands of people and nearly tipped the country into full-scale civil war.
“The issue of reconciliation won’t end in a conference. It is an ongoing issue that will take months, if not years,” said Iraq’s national security advisor Mowaffaq al-Rubaie.
Some members of the minority Sunni Arab community say they have wanted reconciliation but feel they are too weak to get a fair deal after being marginalised.
“Reconciliation is sacred, but the government wants reconciliation on their stronger terms, which is oppressive,” said Saleh al-Mutlaq, an outspoken Sunni Arab parliamentarian.
In a positive sign, Iraq’s main Sunni Arab bloc has said it was close to rejoining the government after quitting nearly a year ago. Mutlaq is not part of that bloc.

Sunni Arabs have little voice in the current Iraqi cabinet, which is dominated by Shiites and Kurds.
The Iraqi government has decided to sue Al-Jazeera satellite news channel, after it had falsely aired scenes of a public execution which it identified as taking place in the southern Iraqi province of Karbala, Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al-Dabagh said on Saturday.
In fact, the Iraqi government notes that the killings involved Afghans who allegedly had raped and murdered a girl in the Iranian city of Karaj near the capital.
Last night, Al-Dabagh was quoted by the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency as saying that the case has moved to the legal department in the government to see if it can sue the Doha-based channel under international law.
Earlier Friday, Al-Dabagh warned that al-Jazeera would lose credibility after showing scenes of an execution which it said took place during clashes last March between Iraqi forces and militants of al-Mahdi Army.