WASHINGTON - The killing of militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi at the same time Iraq finished forming its government was "a stunning shock to the al Qaeda system," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday.
"On the very day he gets killed, the government gets formed," Rumsfeld told reporters. He spoke on his plane home to Washington from Brussels, where news of the death of Zarqawi and five others in a precision U.S. bombing in Iraq upstaged a NATO ministerial meeting.
Replacing Zarqawi, who U.S. authorities said directed the killings of thousands of Iraqis and was the pivotal link between al Qaeda in Iraq and the wider network of Osama bin Laden, "is not impossible but it takes time, it takes effort," Rumsfeld said.
He said it was not immediately clear who might succeed the Jordanian-born Zarqawi at the helm of Iraq's most violent insurgent group that killed thousands of Iraqis through suicide bombings and organized attacks.
"I'm sure that the intelligence people could probably tell you two or three people who had various roles and who would be likely prospects," said Rumsfeld.
"It could also be somebody outside the Iraqi network," he added.
Asked if he expected a surge of retaliatory violence in Iraq, the Pentagon chief said many attacks were planned in advance, unconnected to daily events.
"You can have an upswing but I think linking it to that would surprise me," said Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld received news of the strike that killed Zarqawi on the eve of defense ministers' talks in NATO focusing on operations in Afghanistan and told fellow ministers on Thursday morning, aides said.
He hailed Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for his success in finally naming interior and defense ministers and averting a crisis in the Shi'ite Islamist's three-week-old unity government.
"He's the kind of person who can make decisions, he can make tough decisions. He's willing to stick to his guns, and I think his early months as a relatively new political leader in Iraq, one has to give him very high marks," Rumsfeld said.
Feeds