rsync won't stop password prompt

[Rob Brenart <debian@oculardata.com>]

I'm trying to script an rsync process and I keep getting the password 
prompt... here's my "script"

rsync -avz -e /usr/bin/ssh --password-file=/home/username/pwd.rsync 
/home/user/test/ host:/home/username/test

And it works fine, but it prompts me for a password even though I'm 
using --password-file

I also tried putting
export RSYNC_PASSWORD=pwd

but that didn't have an effect either.

Any help?