Operation Pisa involved 1,000 troops — 800 British and 200 Danish. Major Charlie Burbridge, spokesman for the multinational force in Basra, described those arrested as “rogue elements” of the local Shia militia who supported Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical cleric. In one of the raids, soldiers from the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment found explosives, fuses and multiple ammunition rounds at the address of a suspected bomb-maker.

In Washington, Donald Rumsfeld bade an emotional farewell to Pentagon staff, saying that he hoped history would look kindly on his six years as Defence Secretary — or at least “better than the local press” had done. He insisted that the media had painted a false impression of life in Iraq. “Every time there’s a bomb going off in Baghdad, you’d think the whole country’s aflame. But you fly over it, and that’s just simply not the case.”

Mr Rumsfeld, who will formally leave office on December 18, described the Abu Ghraib prison scandal as his “worst day” but also expressed pride at the way Pentagon staff had shown “the world how our democracy deals openly and decisively with such egregious wrongdoing”. He added: “I wish I could say that everything we’ve done here has gone perfectly, but that’s not how life works, regrettably.”

Asked about the Iraq Study Group report, Mr Rumsfeld pleaded for patience saying that to “pull out precipitously . . . would be a terrible mistake”.

President Bush yesterday embarked on a listening tour of Washington, meeting Congressional leaders to discuss “the need for a new way forward in Iraq”. On Monday he will meet outside experts and on Tuesday will hold a video-conference with US military commanders in Iraq.

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