Rumsfeld tours Latin America to thank support of US-led effort in Iraq

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2004

SAN SALVADOR (AFP) — US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld began in El Salvador a week-long tour of Latin America, including Nicaragua, Panama and Ecuador, to thank the region for its support of the US-led effort in Iraq and the fight against international terrorism.

As the only Latin American nation with troops in Iraq, "El Salvador is a strong ally of the global war on terror, and a nation that understands well the global struggle for liberty and democracy," Rumsfeld told a group of US veterans living here after his arrival here.

He compared El Salvador's civil war (1980-1992) to what is happening in Iraq and stressed that El Salvador was now "one of the freest and most stable countries in the hemisphere and the people of the US take special pride in having stood...