SHANNON, Ireland - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday her talks with leaders in Iraq were "very heartening" but stormy negotiations may lie ahead as they hash out a political system acceptable to all rival communities.
Rice also said the United States would step up pressure on Syria, which she again alleged was allowing "foreign terrorists" to assemble on its territory and cross over into Iraq to fuel an escalating insurgency.
She made her comments to reporters on her way home after holding half a dozen meetings with Iraqi officials in a surprise visit to the violence-scarred country that lasted less than 12 hours.
The chief US diplomat went into Iraq expressing concern about the relative exclusion of minority Sunni Muslims from a committee dominated by Shiites and Kurds that must draft a new constitution by August 15.
But she said after her talks, "I find a willingness and even desire to try and broaden the basis of the people who are going to be involved in writing the constitution. ... I thought that was really very heartening."
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, pledged on Sunday to boost Sunni participation in the process after parliament gave them only two of 55 seats on a drafting committee.
He gave no specifics on how he would do that and Rice said Monday, "I am sure there is going to be a lot of disagreement among them on what those mechanisms ought to be."
The secretary renewed her vote of confidence in the new government, formed after three months of fierce political horse-trading following the landmark January 30 elections for a national assembly.
But she predicted more tough bargaining ahead as the Iraqis move towards a permanent political structure while battling a stubborn insurgency more than two years after the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
"I don't have any doubts that, as with any political process, and I want to underline any political process in any country, there will be some 11th hour character to it," Rice said.
"There will be some up and down. Somebody will threaten to walk out and there will be a lot of drama."
But she saw no reason to put back the deadlines for drafting the constitution and holding new elections for a permanent government in December. "They (the Iraqis) have shown remarkable ability to deliver when they need to," she said.
Rice said the two main issues in drafting a new would likely be the influence of Islam and the question of a federal structure that is of primary concern to the autonomy-minded Kurds in the country's north.
She said the Kurds appeared resigned to scrapping their hope of independence but added there would likely be a "struggle" over how much autonomy to accord them.
"I am sure they will work as anybody would under these circumstances to get as much autonomy as they could possibly get," she said.
Rice started her first Iraq foray as secretary of state with a stop in the northern stronghold of Kurdish leader Massud Barzani outside Arbil. There she peppered her statements with frequent references to a "federal Iraq."
"It was important to have a message that said we acknowledge the special circumstances of the Kurds but we acknowledge it within the context of a unified Iraq," Rice said Monday.
The secretary said she had good discussions on the security situation with Iraqi officials amid a growing wave of attacks that have killed some 400 people in recent weeks.
Rice said the insurgency was aided by the presence of what she called "foreign terrroists" and added, "We believe they are gathering on Syrian territory and coming across" to Iraq.
"Their (the Syrians') unwillingnsss to deal with crossings of their border into Iraq is frustrating the will of the Iraqi people," Rice said. "We're talking about killing innocent Iraqis here."
Rice expressed satisfaction with their determination to field local troops to eventually replace the 138,000 US forces and 23,000 soldiers from other countries that are currently in Iraq.
But she added, "Really you defeat insurgencies politically. It's when they don't have support among the population and when there clearly is a better answer to the protection of one's interests than violence, that insurgencies die."

05/16/2005 15:47 GMT