BAGHDAD, March 11 (UPI) -- Kim Howells, Britain's Foreign Office minister, conceded the situation in Iraq is "a mess," but said Iraq's prospects are better than media reports suggest.
Howells, who is visiting the country to examine the oil industry, played down fears of a civil war.
Iraq was undergoing a "very, very painful process," he said and praised how ordinary Iraqis were adapting to the country's changes.
"We have got to have some trust in the Iraqi people to understand, as they certainly do, that those who are trying to promote civil war, through their suicide bombings and their kidnapping and the rest of the terrible tactics, are there for a particular purpose."
He also dismissed recent complaints about the war by conservative figures in the United States.
"I do not look to them to continue the fight for democracy and to rebuild a nation in Iraq any more than I would look at some left-wing loony," he said.
