Rice's visit to India is just an expression of solidarity: US

Refusing to get into the details of investigations, including reports of warning given by the US intelligence officials ahead of the Mumbai terror attacks, the Bush administration has stressed that the main focus of the visit of the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to India, is to express solidarity.

Officials of State Department at Foggy Bottom and at the White House refused to comment on various media reports of investigations pertaining to the attack.

"The message that Secretary Rice is going to give to the Indians is one of condolences to the Indian people and the Indian government for the attacks in Mumbai. She will also be expressing American solidarity with India at this time of tragedy," said State Department's Deputy Spokesman Robert Wood.

The Department also seemed to stay away from the President-elect Barack Obama's statement in Chicago on Monday that sovereign nations have a right to defend themselves against terror attacks.

"With regard to what the President-elect said, I think his words speak for themselves," Wood said at his briefing.

Wood maintained that it is not for the US to give a "green light " to India to go after the terrorists.

"We don't give green lights to any countries - green or red lights to countries. What we're trying to do is we've got a tragedy that took place in India. We want to work with the government of India and other players to do what we can to bring the culprits of these attacks to justice.

Reiterating Rice's call for greater cooperation, the official said all the countries "need to be prepared and do whatever is necessary to stop these types of attacks".