THE surprise visit of Condoleezza Rice to Iraq was upstaged yesterday as insurgents mounted a wave of attacks against those loyal to the shaky United States-backed Government.

In the first visit by a member of the Bush Administration since Iraq formed its Government a fortnight ago, the US Secretary of State sought to give impetus to the country’s political transformation.

Yet even as she was shuttled across the country, insurgents stepped up their campaign of terror on a day in which at least a dozen people were killed and the bodies of 46 others were found. It began with a double suicide-bomb attack against Raad Rashid, the Governor of Diyala province. He escaped unhurt, but four policemen and two civilians were killed. The attack followed assassinations of two government officials, one who worked at the Industry Ministry, the other at the Foreign Ministry. A Shia cleric was also murdered by gunmen.

Then police found the handcuffed bodies of 13 men near the sprawling Sadr City slum in Baghdad. They had been shot dead and abandoned in a rubbish dump.

West of Baghdad, in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, the remains of ten Iraqi soldiers were found with their throats cut. South of the capital, in Iskandariya, the corpses of eleven more Iraqis, thought to be lorry drivers, were found in a field, four of them beheaded.

The killings pushed the death toll in Iraq to nearly 500 since the new Government was formed. Laith Kubba, the Government’s spokesman, blamed foreign volunteers for the campaign, which included 70 car bombs, and accused “these criminals of trying to prove that the Government is incapable of protecting the people”.

US forces have tried to blunt the insurgent campaign and yesterday ended the week-long Operation Matador to halt the infiltration of foreign fighters into Iraq across the Syrian border. Nine US Marines and 125 suspected terrorists were killed, but there was no appreciable impact on the insurgency.

Dr Rice said yesterday: “The insurgency is very violent, but you defeat insurgencies not just militarily — in fact not especially militarily — you defeat them by having a political alternative that is strong.

“The Iraqis are going to have to intensify their efforts to demonstrate that in fact the political process is the answer for the Iraqi people.”

The Americans want the Shia-led Government to press on with drawing up a constitution and to meet the deadline of August 15 for a draft document to be ready. They also want commitments from senior Shia and Kurdish figures in the leadership that they will work harder to include Sunni Muslims in the process. Once the ruling elite in Iraq, the disaffected Sunni community is now the recruiting pool for the insurgency. Sunnis are poorly represented in parliament and have only two seats out of fifty-five in the key constitutional committee.

The political debate is a luxury that few Iraqis can afford. They risked their lives to vote in the elections in January, but had to wait three months for a Government to be formed and now face some of the worst violence and chaos of the postwar period.

Abu Ali, a taxi driver, said: “I heard Rice was here. Is she here to improve electricity? Is she here to listen to the agonies of the Iraqi people? Of course not. She is here to promote American interests, not Iraq’s.”

Mohammad Hussein, 35, an engineer, said that the visit could help. “Her arrival may not be a great event in itself. But once she has been here many other world leaders will follow to Baghdad.”

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