U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.(file photo)

    BEIJING, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Despite worldwide anti-war protests on the third anniversary of the Iraq war, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended President George W. Bush and his administration's war policy in a newspaper column published on Sunday.

    In the Washington Post, Rumsfeld wrote that if U.S. troops left Iraq now, "there is every reason to believe Saddamists and terrorists will fill the vacuum -- and the free world might not have the will to face them again."

    Asserting his point, the Pentagon chief drew parallels between the situations in current Iraq and Germany 60 years ago.

    "Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis," he said.

    Rumsfeld said Iraqi insurgents were trying to fuel sectarian tensions to spark a civil war, but they must be "watching with fear" the "progress" Iraq has made over the past three years.

    Claiming that the insurgency was losing ground, he said "the terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq. I believe that history will show that to be the case."

    The war rhetoric came as tens of thousands of people joined rallies around Europe and the United States to protest against the war launched by the Bush administration three years ago.

    Domestically, growing doubts over the war have further eroded President Bush's approval ratings to their lowest level.

    In a Newsweek poll released on Saturday, only 36 percent of the respondents approved of his performance as president while 65 percent disapproved of his handling of the war.

    But the president seems to remain steadfast on his war policy.

    In his weekly radio address on Saturday, he once again urged Americans to "resist a temptation to retreat from Iraq." Enditem