US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday that defeating the insurgency may take as long as 12 years, with Iraqi security forces, not US and foreign troops, taking the lead and finishing the job.

Rumsfeld predicted more violence in Iraq could go on for a number of years.

In a deadly week for US forces, an ambush on a convoy carrying female troops killed four Marines. Statistics from AP indicate at least 1,735 members of the US military have died since the war started in March 2003.

Rumsfeld said Sunday the United States has been facilitating meetings between officials from the Iraqi government and insurgents, confirming a report in London on such meetings.

"The Iraqis have a sovereign government. They will decide what their relationships with various elements of insurgents will be. We facilitate those from time to time," Rumsfeld said on "Fox News Sunday."

Rumsfeld was responding to questions over a report on The Sunday Times newspaper that four US officials met secretly with Iraqi insurgent commanders at a summer villa in Balad, north of Baghdad, on June 3 and June 13 to try to negotiate an end to the bloodshed.

The report said one American official introduced himself as a Pentagon representative and declared himself ready to "find ways of stopping the bloodshed on both sides and to listen to demands and grievances."

Rumsfeld said the meetings were part of the effort by the Iraqi government to reach out to "the people who are not supporting the government."

"Are our people involved in helping them? Sure. We talk to people all the time," he said on ABC's "This Week."

Rumsfeld said the Iraqi government would not try to bring in the people "with blood on their hands." But the London report said insurgents at the first meeting included the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which claimed responsibility for an attack that killed 22 people in the dining hall of a US base at Mosul last Christmas.

Source: agencies