Former soldiers protest during a rally outside the temporary American headquarters in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, June 19 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As a mortar round hit a U.S. military base late Wednesday, June 18, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed Iraqi resistance attacks as “militarily insignificant”.

The mortar attack on the town of Samarra in the restive territory north of Baghdad killed one Iraqi and wounding 12, the U.S. military said Thursday, June 19.

A military spokesman was not immediately able to provide details on identifying the dead Iraqi or his position, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

U.S. troops at the compound said the attackers escaped, adding that there were no American casualties in the attack, which came amid a wave of attacks directed at U.S. forces and targets in the country.

A total of 51 U.S. troops have died since President George W. Bush declared the invasion in Iraq effectively over on May 1, according to an AFP count from U.S. military statements.

Anti-American attacks have been stirred up with the launch at the weekend of Operation Desert Scorpion, in which more than 400 people were detained and many houses searched.

More than 100 Iraqis were killed in a two-day U.S. military sweep ending June 13, further to the anger of local inhabitants. 

Not "Militarily Significant"

Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the surge of attacks on U.S. occupation forces in Iraq are "militarily insignificant" and a sign of the increasing desperation of "Baathists" targeted in scores of raids.

Rumsfeld expressed confidence that U.S. public support for the occupation will hold despite the mounting casualties. But he acknowledged that improved security will depend on factors beyond the immediate military situation.

"General (Tommy) Franks will root out the remainder of those people to the extent that it can be done," Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld’s comments came as Congress gears up for its own hearings into whether the Bush administration misinterpreted or manipulated pre-invasion intelligence on the scale of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

With the failure to provide hard evidence so far of Iraq's alleged weapons, key congressional Democrats demanded an inquiry and presidential contenders turned the table on the White House.

The U.S. and British forces launched the invasion under the pretext that the Arab country has weapons of mass destruction. More than two months into the end of the invasion, no such banned weapons have been found.

‘Warning’

In Baghdad, a group warned U.S. occupation forces that they would face more hostile acts unless they resolved the "serious" problem of back pay for members of the former Iraqi army.

"We told the Americans that the issue of outstanding payments was of paramount importance and that if you do not solve it you must expect more operations against you," Najib as-Salehi, secretary general of the Movement of Free Iraqi Officers and Civilians, said on Wednesday.

"Failure to resolve this problem is a mistake whose consequences the Americans will have to bear," the formerly exiled ex-army officer told a conference on the role of his group in the new Iraq.

Salehi however added that "both parties," which he did not identify, had "blown the payment problem out of proportion in pursuit of political ends."

Two former Iraqi soldiers were killed in Baghdad when U.S. troops fired on a protest held by ex-soldiers demanding salary arrears still unpaid since the top U.S. civil administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, officially dissolved the Iraqi army on May 23.

Shortly afterwards, a U.S. soldier was shot dead in the south of the capital in what the U.S. occupation forces said was a drive-by attack.

Iraqis are furious that the U.S. forces have not make good on their promises to improve their situation, restore order and address growing unemployment rates to the war-impoverished country.

The failure to maintain security, restore public services or ease the tough living conditions in post-Saddam Iraq, sent anti-American sentiments sky-high.

Clashes also broke out in Mosul Thursday, June 12, between several hundred former Iraqi soldiers and local police as the soldiers demanded their salaries and tried to storm a government building, at a time of high unemployment rates.