Washington, Oct 5, SPA -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today that more offensives by U.S. and Iraqi forces like the one just ended in the city of Samarra were needed to rid the country of safe havens for insurgents. "What has to be done in that country is what happened in Samarra over the last 48 hours," he said. "You cannot allow a series of safe havens or a consistent pattern of misbehavior, anti-social behavior, [and] violence against the government of Iraq to go on over a sustained period of time," Rumsfeld said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. "You can't allow that, or you don't have a country, or people don't feel they have a stake in it." At least 150 people were killed and scores were injured in two days of fighting for Samarra, a predominantly Sunni Muslim city north of Baghdad that had been under rebel control since June. Rumsfeld said diplomacy backed by the threat of force remains the preferred means to regain cities controlled by insurgents, but it has not always worked. "Finally, you may have to use force, and that's what happened" in Samarra, he said.--SPA1236 Local Time 0936 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/208171