Rumsfeld meets with top commanders

"The success of Iraq is in your hands," Rumsfeld told a class training for the US-created Iraqi Civil Defence Corps at a base on the outskirts of Baghdad.

Rumsfeld arrived unannounced earlier in the day on a military aircraft for his fourth visit to Iraq since US-led forces toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein last year.

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Paul Bremer, the chief of the US-led coalition authority, met Rumsfeld at the Baghdad International Airport and then flew by helicopter with him to a forward operating base of the 2nd Light Cavalry Regiment on the east side of the city.

He was briefed on plans to reduce the US military presence in Baghad, shrinking the number of troops inside the city from 36,000 to 24,000 by May 15, and the number of bases in the capital from 48 to eight.

Replacing them will be 12,000 Iraqi police and seven battalions of the civil defence corps, Brigadier General Martin Dempsey told Rumsfeld.

"The threat is moving away from former regime (elements) and into international influence, international terrorism," Dempsey said.

The Iraqis "are far more adept at identifying that than we are," he said. "This is all coming together in a pretty good way for us."