BAGHDAD - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Saturday that this week's deadly suicide bombings in Iraq are a sign that extremists are afraid the Iraqi government is succeeding. Making her first trip to Iraq as America's top diplomat, Clinton said the country has made great strides despite the recent violence that killed at least 159 people on Thursday and Friday."I think that these suicide bombings ... are unfortunately, in a tragic way, a signal that the rejectionists fear that Iraq is going in the right direction," Clinton told reporters traveling aboard her plane ahead of her unannounced visit to Baghdad.
"I think in Iraq there will always be political conflicts, there will always be, as in any society, sides drawn between different factions, but I really believe Iraq as a whole is on the right track," she said, citing "overwhelming evidence" of "really impressive" progress.
"Are there going to be bad days? Yes, there are," Clinton said. "But I don't know of any difficult international situation anywhere in the world or history where there haven't been bad days."
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Clinton said her lightning round of meetings with American and Iraqi politicians and military officials wold be all aimed at helping the fledgling democracy transition to a "stable, sovereign, self-reliant" future. She said she would press the Iraqis with U.S. help to create a "nonsectarian security force that will not tolerate either sectarian actions or any kind of armed assault on the people of Iraq."
She is in Baghdad, following President Barack Obama's brief visit earlier this month, to assure Iraqi authorities of the administration's support even as it moves to draw down the U.S. military presence in the country. "We want the Iraqi people to know that the United States remains committed to helping them navigate through this period and have a better future," she said, ahead of meetings with al-Maliki, President Jalal Talibani and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.
Clinton, who made three trips to Iraq while she was serving in the Senate, is to begin her program in Baghdad with a closed-door briefing from Mullen and Odierno to discuss the uptick in violence. "I want his evaluation of what these kinds of rejectionist efforts mean and what can be done to prevent them by both the Iraqi government and the U.S. forces," she said.
Clinton will then see the U.N. representative to Iraq before meeting Iraqi war widows and holding an unprecedented "town hall" style meeting with Iraqi aid workers and others at the U.S. Embassy.