WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday it could take as long as 12 years to defeat the insurgency in Iraq, but he said it will be up to Iraqi forces to do the job.

"That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years," Rumsfeld told "Fox News Sunday."

"Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency. We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency," he said.

The defense secretary also acknowledged that U.S. officials have met with insurgents in Iraq, after a British newspaper reported two recent meetings.

Insurgent commanders "apparently came face to face" with four U.S. officials during meetings June 3 and June 13 at a villa near Balad, 25 miles north of Baghdad, The Sunday Times reported.

Speaking on yesterday's television news shows, Rumsfeld said more than two such meetings have taken place. He downplayed their significance but did not reveal the names of participants or the substance of the meetings.

He insisted the talks did not involve negotiations with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists but rather facilitated efforts by the Shiite-led government to reach out to minority Sunni Arabs, who are believed to be the driving force behind the insurgency. Three insurgent groups denied that any meetings had taken place.

Rumsfeld acknowledged that the insurgents' attacks "are more lethal than they had been previously; they're killing a lot more Iraqis," and he said the insurgency "could become more violent" in advance of a referendum on a new Iraqi constitution and new elections in December.

Rumsfeld's frank assessment, which echoed one that the top two U.S. military commanders in Iraq gave to Congress last week, came as President Bush prepares to address the nation about Iraq tomorrow night. Recent opinion polls have found flagging public support for the war and growing doubt about whether invading Iraq was the right thing to do.

The top U.S. commander in the Middle East appealed for public support of the soldiers and their mission. "We don't need to fight this war looking over our shoulder worrying about the support back home," Gen. John Abizaid told CNN's "Late Edition."

Deadly attacks continue

It also came as insurgents in Iraq have escalated their attacks.

Suicide bombers yesterday struck a police headquarters, an army base and a hospital around Mosul, killing 33 people in a setback to efforts to rebuild the northwestern city's police force, which was riven by intimidation from insurgents seven months ago.

At least 14 people were killed in attacks elsewhere in Iraq, including a U.S. soldier whose convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in Baghdad and six Iraqi soldiers who were gunned down outside their base north of the capital.

Insurgent attacks have killed more than 1,300 people, most of them Iraqis, since April 28, when Prime Minister Ibrahim al Jaafari announced the formation of his government. At least 1,735 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

In the last week, at least 15 car bombs have targeted U.S. troops, Iraqi policemen, soldiers and Shiite neighborhoods.

Marines confirmed killed

The U.S. military yesterday also confirmed the deaths of two more Marines in Thursday's ambush on a convoy carrying female U.S. troops in Fallujah, bringing the number killed to at least four Marines. A Marine and a sailor were still missing and presumed dead, the military said. At least two of the dead were women, and 11 of the 13 wounded troops were female.

The attacks in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, started early yesterday when a suicide bomber with explosives hidden beneath watermelons in a pickup slammed into a downtown police station near a market. U.S. Army Capt. Mark Walter said 10 policemen and two civilians were killed.

Less than two hours later, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the parking lot of an Iraqi army base on Mosul's outskirts, killing 16 people, Walter said. Most of the victims were civilian workers arriving at the site, he said. Of the seven injured, one lost a leg and another was paralyzed from the waist down, the military said.

A third attacker strapped with explosives walked into Mosul's Jumhouri Teaching Hospital in the afternoon and blew himself up in a room used by police guarding the facility, killing five policemen.

Al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attacks in Mosul — the country's third-largest city. The claim, which was made on an Internet site used by militants, could not be verified.

Rumsfeld said he is bracing for even more violence.

"I would anticipate you're going to see an escalation of violence between now and the December elections," he said.

Rumsfeld said Iraq's security forces have gained respect among Iraqis. He suggested insurgents' ability to kill in large numbers did not indicate a decline in public support for efforts by the U.S. and Iraqi governments, or that political, economic and security progress has been lacking.

"It doesn't take a genius to go blow up a restaurant or attack a police station, a suicide bomber. You can kill — a kid with a suicide vest can kill a lot of people," Rumsfeld said.

"Does that mean that the population is 'going south' and there's no plan and no progress? No, it doesn't mean that at all," he said.

Rumsfeld defended Vice President Dick Cheney's recent statement that the insurgents are in their "last throes," saying there are many ways to measure their strength. "If you look up 'last throes,' it can mean a violent last throe," Rumsfeld said on ABC's "This Week."

Violence may escalate, he said, because insurgents "have so much to lose between now and December."