By Howard Cincotta
Washington File Special Correspondent

Washington -- The Iraqi people are in large measure hostages to the vicious regime of Saddam Hussein, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in television news interviews on March 30.

The coalition will prevail, he said, "with a minimal loss of life on the part of the Iraqi people because it's not a war against the Iraqi people, it's a war against the Iraqi regime, and they're going to be gone."

Rumsfeld appeared on the ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos and Fox News Sunday with Tony Snow.

"It is important that the people of Iraq be liberated," Rumsfeld said on ABC's This Week. "It's also important that we can do it, I hope and pray, with limited loss of innocent lives."

On Fox News Sunday, Rumsfeld said the Iraqi regime has "undoubtedly killed more Iraqi people than have been killed in the war by the coalition. What they're doing is they're threatening people that if they support the coalition, if they do not fight for the regime, that they're shot -- and then they're shot."

The fear that the Iraqi people feel from the regime's death squads is real, Rumsfeld said on Fox News Sunday, but the coalition is working effectively to counter them.

He cited the example of Basra, where British forces "are getting increasing assistance from the local people as to where the death squads are located, where the thugs are, and they're systematically working them over. So, Basra will end up secure in a reasonable period of time, and the British are doing an outstanding job. And I think it's an indication of what will happen in other cities."

Rumsfeld denied that he had changed or altered the planning for the Iraq campaign, which he said was drawn up by Tommy Franks, the Centcom commander. He described is as creative and innovative on ABC's This Week, noting that forces continue to flow into Iraq at the rate of two to three thousand a day.

"A lot of good things happened, and a lot of bad things were avoided because General Franks decided to put forces on the ground fast and early," Rumsfeld noted, pointing to the relatively small numbers of refugees to date, and success in protecting the southern oil fields from sabotage.

The military campaign is only nine days old, Rumsfeld said, and the progress against the regime of Saddam Hussein has been substantial. In little more than a week, Rumsfeld observed on ABC's This Week, a powerful coalition is closing in on Baghdad from the south, west and north; achieved total air superiority, secured the southern oil fields, controlled ports and brought in humanitarian aid, captured 4,500 prisoners of war.

"And we know that there are people fleeing from the senior regime leadership's family," Rumsfeld added. "And we haven't seen Saddam Hussein or his son in close to eight days."

When asked about the tragic marketplace bombings in Baghdad, Rumsfeld said the cause is still under investigation. He noted, however, that the Iraqi air-defense general had apparently been fired. The Iraqis, he said, "are putting an awful lot of things up in the air and they come down somewhere. And they're not hitting our airplanes. We know that. We haven't lost any airplanes. So they're coming down someplace. And I just don't know the answer to that."

On the question of chemical weapons, Rumsfeld said that specially trained teams were just beginning to investigate many of the sites and intelligence materials captured by coalition forces.

Without predicting a time period, Rumsfeld expressed confidence that the end of the regime could well be swift. "Will it tip at some point?" Rumsfeld said on Fox News Sunday. "Certainly. I mean, look at what happened in Romania, look at what happened in dictatorships. Look at what happened in many countries of Eastern Europe. All of a sudden they were strong, they were there, everything was working, and then it completely collapsed."