The Iraqi insurgency is just as strong now as it was one year ago, the most senior US military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers has admitted.

Gen Myers also insists the US and coalition forces are winning the war and is confident of military victory.

"I'm going to say this: I think we are winning, okay. I think we're definitely winning. I think we've been winning for some time," Myers told reporters.

Gen Myers said the number of attacks has increased slightly recently but maintained that was a poor measure of the insurgency, noting that half the attacks are thwarted.

He acknowledged that insurgents were capable of surging to higher levels of violence as they did before the January 30 elections.

"I think their capacity stays about the same and where they are right now is where they were almost a year ago," he said.

"The essential point is that for things to work in Iraq, you've got to work against what we said, all these lines of operation, of which good governance is one," he said.

Gen Myers called on Iraq's politicians to end three months of squabbling and form a government.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld emphasised the need for progress toward political and economic stability as key to defeating the insurgency.

"The United States and the coalition forces, in my personal view, will not be the thing that will defeat the insurgency," he said.

"So therefore winning or losing is not the issue, in my view, in the traditional, conventional context of using the word 'winning' and 'losing' in a war," he said.

"The people that are going to defeat that insurgency are going to be the Iraqis. And the Iraqis will do it not through military means solely, but by progress on the political side and giving the Iraqi people a sense that they have a stake in that country," he said.

Mr Rumsfeld reiterated warnings that efforts to develop Iraqi security forces could be set back if Iraq's new leaders make changes based not on competence but political considerations.

"We can't afford slippage. We need to see that there's some stability," he said.

© 2005 Agence France Presse

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