The security situation on the ground continues to be extremely difficult, even if the wide-scale looting has been largely stopped. American forces are coming under daily attack. It appears that these attacks are increasing in number and, at least in some cases, being carried out on some sort of organised basis. The US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, has predicted that it will take months to eradicate pockets of resistance by supposed elements of the Ba'athist regime, although it is not at all clear that resistance is limited to these elements alone.