WASHINGTON, Sept 8 (AFP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell paid tribute Wednesday to the 1,000 US soldiers who have been killed since the US-led invasion of Iraq last year but stressed that the United States must "defeat this enemy" and press on toward elections slated for January 2005.
"The greatest tribute we can pay to these brave, wonderful young Americans who have given their lives is to persevere, to keep moving forward, to defeat this enemy," Powell told ABC television.
He said the United States must "go forward with elections at the end of this year, beginning of next year, and turn over, increasingly, security responsibilities to Iraqi forces as they are trained.
"What we have to do is to keep our eye on the goal, and that is to have a free Iraq with a democratically elected government," Powell said. "It is tough going. But let's ... not forget: We are capable of dealing with these kinds of challenges. We have done it before in our past. And we have to keep moving forward."
He said the United States must respond to the challenges posed by Iraqi insurgents. "We are paying a cost for it, the Iraqis are paying a cost for it, ... but there is no alternative to persevering and going forward," Powell declared.
Still, he insisted that "the whole country is not in an uproar as would be suggested."
"The south, once we resolve the situation, is relatively quiet. The north is relatively quiet. The major problem is in the Sunni triangle in the center, where we are having difficulty with Sadr City and some of the other cities."
"I fully expected that insurgency to continue for a while until it was put down," Powell told NBC television in a separate interview. "And now that's where we are directing our efforts at: putting it down with use of coalition troops, as well as building up as rapidly as possible Iraqi security forces."
Responding to Powell's comments, his predecessor Madeleine Albright, an adviser to Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry, told NBC: "I would love to believe all the things that Secretary Powell is saying, but the facts are simply not there on the ground, and things are getting worse.
"August was a terrible, deadly month. And I think we do, in fact, have to and should mourn the lives of every one of the Americans that have died and all those casualties that people seem to forget about," Albright added.
A Pentagon official said the death toll in Iraq was at least 1,001, including three US civilian officials. He said officials were still trying to confirm two additional reported deaths.
Another US soldier killed early Wednesday in a roadside bomb attack north of Baghdad would put the tally at 1,002.