DONALD Rumsfeld came to the Middle East, he saw what was going on, but whether or not the US defence secretary conquered anyone or anything is a moot point. During his whistle-stop tour, which took in US assets in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as a confidence building stop-off in Pakistan, Rumsfeld put on a bravura performance.

Troops in Afghanistan were told that history would put them in the same bracket as the US forces which liberated Germany 60 years ago. The Pakistanis were given F-16 warplanes as a reward for their role in rounding up more than 700 al-Qaeda suspects. The new Kyrgyz government was reassured that the lucrative US air base at Bishkek would not be leaving town.

There were a few bloopers though. Having invited US troops to fire questions at him while in Kabul, he stumbled over issues such as the introduction of a new carbine and claimed not to have heard about a scheme to fast- track citizenship for non-US soldiers.

Rumsfeldisms abounded. A soldier asked why the media remained sceptical about overseas deployments such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Rumsfeld told the soldier not to worry, as the US public had an inner moral gyroscope which allowed them to take a balanced view of world events. Presumably the same instrument also keeps them on the straight and narrow.

In Islamabad, his advisers might have been better advised to have quietened him down about the supply of new weapons – Indian nationalists might not be so sure that the F-16s are for legitimate defensive purposes.

So far, so Rumsfeld. None of this was terminal and, since the spiky defence secretary enjoys the reputation of speaking his mind, no irreparable damage was done. That was left for Iraq.

Rumsfeld pitched up in Baghdad intent on reading the riot act to the new administration over its plans to purge the country’s security forces. No sooner had the new prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari been sworn in than he was facing a dressing down and being told to be “darned careful about making a lot of changes”.

Rumsfeld does not want the administration to get rid of members of the security forces who either served Saddam Hussein or were members of the Ba’ath Party. Most are former army or police officers and are considered by the US to be the pick of the fledgling security forces. As professionals they should clearly remain in their posts but, because they are Sunnis, the Shia-dominated administration wants to bring in its own people.

By telling Jaafari to re consider before making any changes, Rumsfeld probably thought he was being helpful and pragmatic. The US has invested heavily in training the new security forces and the loss of key personnel could undo all that good work. Instead, Rumsfeld caused offence.

Since he last visited Iraq, an election has been held and a new government elected. The umbilical cord to the US has been cut and the new order does not take kindly to being governed in the way that they were when the US administrator Paul Bremer reigned supreme in Baghdad.

If Rumsfeld wanted any evidence that things had changed he only had to look at last weekend’s demonstrations, in which tens of thousands of Shias took to the streets of Baghdad to demand the withdrawal of the US coalition garrison.

The official US view is that their forces will remain in Iraq until the insurgency has been crushed. While that is acceptable as long as the violence continues and the Iraqis fail to deal with it, the presence of 130,000 US troops has also provoked fears that the US wants to create a new Middle East power base to replace Saudi Arabia. In fact, that concern is not a million miles removed from US policy but lecturing the new Iraqi government was hardly the best way of promoting it. Not for the first time in his career, Rumsfeld has been found guilty of shooting from the lip.