Steam

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice says the insurgency in Iraq is losing steam as a political force, even as Democratic congressmen warned Sunday that violence jeopardizes plans for withdrawing some troops.

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"If you think about how to defeat an insurgency, you defeat it not just militarily but politically," she said, adding that she believes the insurgents are "losing steam" politically.

Three to six months from now she'll be saying that the extremists and terrorists have lost even more political steam: "They're highly unpopular. The fact that they're killing more and more people all the time reflects their desperate attempt to use violence to compensate for their political defeat. Soon they may reach levels of unpopularity akin to those of Saddam Hussein when he ruled the country."

"Nobody liked him," she added.