Washington more dangerous than Baghdad: Rumsfeld

An American army medic was killed today when renegade Iraqis fired a rocket propelled grenade at his ambulance which was on a mercy mission near Baghdad.

But US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the Iraqi capital has less violent crime than Washington.

Two other medics were injured in the third attack on US personnel or their offices in 24 hours, a military spokesman said.

The ambulance was transporting a wounded US soldier to a medical facility when it was hit at about noon while on a road in al-Iskandariyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

Iraqi security officials working with the Americans say regional leaders are directing the attacks by people still loyal to Saddam, former soldiers, Sunni Muslim radicals and non-Iraqi “holy warriors.”

However, Rumsfeld said the attacks are deliberate attempts to kill Americans, but they are not well co-ordinated by any central leader or group, Rumsfeld said in the Pentagon.

“You’ve got to remember that if Washington were the size of Baghdad, we would be having something like 215 murders a month,” Rumsfeld said. “There’s going to be violence in a big city.”

More than a dozen US servicemen have been killed by hostile fire in Iraq since President George Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

Rumsfeld described the resistance as “small elements” of 10 to 20 people, not large military formations or networks of attackers.

He said there “is a little debate” in the administration over whether there is any central control to the resistance, which officials say is coming from Saddam Hussein’s former Baath Party, Fedayeen paramilitary, and other loyalists.