BAGHDAD - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived here Saturday to reassure Iraqis that the United States will support them, even as it withdraws combat troops. But with Iraq reeling from a week of deadly suicide bombings, she got a jittery reception from a country that still plainly relies on the United States for security, stability, and economic survival.

In an encounter with Iraqi students, journalists, and activists, Mrs. Clinton was peppered with questions about how the United States can help Iraq in ways large and small - from building confidence in the Iraqi armed forces to supplying farmers with more up-to-date machinery.

Mrs. Clinton, making her first visit to Baghdad as secretary of state, promised to help Iraq with these and other issues. But, she told the audience of 120, there were some things Iraq has to do for itself.

"The more united Iraq is, the more you will trust the security services," Mrs. Clinton said in response to a question about the army from a young Iraqi journalist, wearing a blazer and white shirt. "The security services have to earn your trust, but the people have to demand it."

Mrs. Clinton insisted that the suicide bombings, which killed 160 people and injured hundreds more, did not mean that Iraq was returning to the sectarian violence that convulsed the country two years ago.

Yet her first stop in Baghdad was to get a briefing on the security situation from the American commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno. Security concerns also came up immediate in Mrs. Clinton's meeting later in the day with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

"Our meeting in 2007 really took place during very difficult circumstances," Mr. Maliki said as they sat shown, "But the security situation, and the situation generally, improved afterward."

Mrs. Clinton, who had flown in from Kuwait on a military transport plane, was greeted in Baghdad by the new American ambassador to Iraq, Christopher R. Hill; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen; and the Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari. She was then driven to the new American embassy in a heavily-armed motorcade.

"In Iraq, there will always be political conflicts," Mrs. Clinton said to reporters on Friday evening, before setting off on the unannounced visit. "But I really believe that Iraq, as a whole, is on the right track."

She characterized the latest violence as the last gasp of "rejectionists" who fear the government will succeed in creating a united and peaceful Iraq. The suicide bombings, she said, are "in an unfortunately tragic way, a signal that the rejectionists fear that Iraq is going in the right direction."

Mrs. Clinton has been a regular visitor here, coming three times as a senator to chart the progress of a war she voted to authorize, but later said had been mismanaged by the Bush administration. She said she was pleased to be back, though the attacks have cast a shadow over her visit.

While the violence is far below the worst levels in 2007, 18 major attacks this month have kindled fears that Baathist jihadist elements could be reconstituting themselves into a smaller, but still deadly, insurgency that will exploit the withdrawal of American troops between now and 2011.

Mrs. Clinton compared these latest suicide bombings to a spectacular terrorist attack that occurred several months after the Good Friday peace accord ended years of conflict in Northern Ireland.

At times, her analysis echoed that of former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. Cheney spoke of the insurgency being in its "last throes," during a period of relentless violence; Mr. Rumsfeld talked of "dead-enders" who kept fighting a lost cause.

On Friday, Gen. David Petraeus, the head of the military's Central Command, testified before a House appropriations committee that the suicide bombers may have been part of a militant network based in Tunisia. Four of the bombers, he said, were from Tunisia.

Mrs. Clinton said she did not have specific information on the bombers, but said: "We've seen suicide bombers from many countries in Iraq over the last six years. It's unfortunate that young men, and occasionally even a young woman, would travel to Iraq to kill other people in that way."

The violence did not curtail Mrs. Clinton's crowded schedule for her brief visit. In addition to her official meetings, she played host at a roundtable of Iraqi women - something she has done in previous trips to Iraq. And she roamed the stage at the town-hall meeting of Iraqis.

This is a format Mrs. Clinton savored as a presidential candidate, and that, as secretary of state, she has used from South Korea to Belgium. But the audience in Baghdad seemed less dazzled by her celebrity than in those countries, and more worried about America's commitment.

Among those questioning Mrs. Clinton was a middle-aged human rights activist, who asked whether the Obama administration, consumed by the economic crisis, had put Iraq on the back burner.

"Let me assure you, and repeat what President Obama said," she replied. "We are committed to Iraq; we want to see a stable, sovereign, self-reliant Iraq." But, she added, there is a transition underway.

Other Iraqis asked Mrs. Clinton for American help with projects like reducing illiteracy and generating water. They wanted a pledge that the United States would help reintegrate people detained by American forces on suspicion of terrorist activities. And they wanted help bringing back disenfranchised groups like the Chaldeans, many of whom fled Iraq.

When time ran short after nearly an hour, Mrs. Clinton promised to hold another town hall on her next visit to Iraq.

"Is that a promise?" a woman in the audience shouted in English. "That's a promise," Mrs. Clinton replied.

Mr. Hill, the new American ambassador, beat Mrs. Clinton to Baghdad by one day. He was confirmed by the Senate on Tuesday after a lengthy process that was held up by Republican senators, who objected to his lack of experience in the Arab world and his handling of negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program.

In Iraq, Mr. Hill will spearhead the shift in emphasis by the United States from military to civilian operations. Some Iraq experts said the American civilian presence here had been lacking momentum since the departure in February of the last United States ambassador, Ryan C. Crocker.




By Mark Landler, The New York Times, April 25, 2009