Talabani said the 2008 date was realistic if the Iraqi government is given more responsibility for security.

"If we can agree with the US government to give us the right of organizing, training, arming our armed forces, it will be possible in 2008 (for US-led forces) to start to leave Iraq and to go back home," he said.

"If you read this report, one would think that it is written for a young, small colony that they are imposing these conditions on," Talabani said. "We are a sovereign country."

He also pointed to the report's call for the approval of a law that would allow thousands of officials from Saddam Hussein's ousted Baath party to return to their jobs.

Meanwhile, sectarian violence raged on the streets of Baghdad on Sunday, with a fresh outburst of retaliatory attacks and clashes between Shi'ites and Sunnis. At least 83 people were killed or found dead throughout the country, including 59 bullet-riddled bodies that turned up in Baghdad.

Late Saturday, gunmen attacked two Shi'ite homes in western Baghdad, killing nine men and seriously wounding another, police said. Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, which police said occurred in the mostly Sunni Arab al-Jihad neighborhood, but it apparently was in retaliation for a bold assault earlier in the day against Sunnis.

Witnesses said Shi'ite militiamen entered a Sunni enclave in Hurriyah - a predominantly Shi'ite neighborhood - after Sunnis warned the few Shi'ites living there to leave or be killed. Heavy machine gun fire was heard on Saturday and three columns of black smoke rose into the sky, the witnesses said on condition of anonymity, also out of concern for their own safety.

Baghdad has been suffering from a series of attacks aimed at driving Sunnis or Shi'ites out of neighborhoods of the capital where they form a minority. Omar Abdul-Sattar, a member of the Sunni Arab Iraqi Islamic Party, said Sunday that an organized effort was under way in Hurriyah to force Sunnis out, and he accused Iraq's Shi'ite-led government of doing little to stop the violence.

Abdul-Sattar claimed that during the past five months, more than 300 Sunni families have been displaced from Hurriyah, more than 100 Sunnis killed and 200 wounded, and at least five Sunni mosques burned, along with houses and shops.

Clashes also erupted between Sunni and Shiite militants in Baghdad's mixed western Amil district, a policeman said. One Shiite militiaman was killed and six people - five Sunnis and one Shi'ite - were wounded, the officer said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

The fighting ended with US and Iraqi forces rushing to the area to contain it, he said.

Rumsfeld, casually dressed in a gray jacket and an open-collar shirt, traveled to several different US bases in the country on Sunday, shaking hands and joking with troops.

"For the past six years, I have had the opportunity and, I would say, the privilege, to serve with the greatest military on the face of the Earth," Rumsfeld said to more than 1,200 soldiers and Marines at al-Asad, a sprawling air base in western Anbar province, an insurgent stronghold.

Rumsfeld did not meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki during his visit. He kept the trip low-profile, with his office declining to discuss his itinerary or schedule in detail for security reasons.

1

2