U.S. Soldiers Welcome Powell to Baghdad

Secretary of State Colin Powell flew into Baghdad on Sunday, making his first visit to Iraq since the U.S.-led ouster of Saddam Hussein five months ago.

Several dozen U.S. soldiers were on hand to greet the secretary and gave him a warm welcome. Powell posed for photographs with a group of soldiers and then boarded a helicopter for the short flight from the airport into Baghdad where he was to meet with various leaders.

Powell came here with little advance notice because of security concerns and traveled from Kuwait aboard a C-130 military transport plane.

Details about Powell’s activities were being closely held, although he was expected to confer with officials of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority and with the Iraqi government entity that was formed in July.

The attacks on American occupying forces, an almost daily occurrence in Iraq, continued when a roadside bomb hit a convoy in the city of Fallujah, killing one U.S. soldier and injuring three others, the military said.

The incident brings to 155 the number of soldiers to die in Iraq since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1. In the heavy fighting before that date, 138 soldiers died.

During his visit Powell was expected to see locations associated with some of the human-rights abuses of the ousted regime. When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld toured Iraq a week ago he visited a location where mass graves were unearthed.

Powell spent the day Saturday in Geneva where he defended the continued U.S. domination of the political arrangements in Iraq. He met with fellow members of the U.N. Security Council, several of whom are seeking a much quicker transition to a government run by Iraqis than is contemplated by the United States.