The German government was "impressed and delighted" to see "a new commitment by the Americans in Iraq," Rice said in a recent interview with German Magazine Der Spiegel to be published on Monday, German news agency DPA reported.

"I found the German government to be fairly sympathetic to what we are trying to do, " said Rice who met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin earlier this week following her three-day trip to the Middle East.

U.S. President George W. Bush announced last week that he planed to send an additional 20,000 U.S. troops to Iraq in an effort to secure the situation there.

Germany, under former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, opposed the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003 which has strained the bilateral relations between Germany and the United States.¡¡