US Secretary for Defence, Mr Donald Rumsfeld has said that security in Iraq has not improved statistically since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
During an interview with the BBC, Mr Rumsfeld was asked if Iraq was safer since Hussein was deposed in 2003, he replied: "Well, statistically no. But clearly it has been getting better as we've gone along."
Suicide bombers killed 28 people in northern Iraq yesterday, including 23 killed in a single attack outside a bank on a crowded street in Kirkuk.
A US soldier was also killed in a roadside bomb attack in southern Baghdad, while five Iraq soldiers died when a suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into an Iraqi army checkpoint.
The military also said two soldiers assigned to a Marine unit were killed in a similar attack Monday in the western city of Ramadi.
US Marines and Iraqi soldiers killed five Iraqi civilians at an entrance to the volatile western town of Ramadi shortly after a suicide attack on a military checkpoint left one Iraqi soldier dead, the military said.
In Baghdad, the bodies of 24 men - some beheaded - were brought to a hospital. The men had been killed in recent ambushes on convoys in western Iraq, seven on Sunday and 17 last Thursday.
In his interview with the BBC’s Newsnight programme, Mr Rumsfeld claimed foreign fighters were entering Iraq through its neighbours Syria and Iran which he said had "relatively porous" borders..
Asked which country was most unhelpful, he added: "With respect to the insurgency, I would say Syria."
"With respect to an effort to try to influence what's taking place, Iran is doing that."