- "...the relentless violence in and around Baghdad
could suck U.S. forces into a quicksand struggle with now disparate enemies,
who may one day coalesce into a more formidable foe."
-
- BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- Iraq
may not yet have spun beyond control, but the United States is groping
to counter the hostility stirred by its occupation among Iraqis forced
to pay a heavy price for freedom from Saddam Hussein.
-
- Washington's critics inside and outside Iraq -- even
those warm to the overall goal of a stable, democratic, prosperous nation
-- say its blunt security-first approach is failing.
-
- The U.S. military has now lost more combat dead in the
six months since President Bush declared the war all but over than it did
during the initial conflict -- not a welcome statistic for an incumbent
hoping to be re-elected next year.
-
- "The (Bush) administration is very concerned that
public support for the occupation is not strong," said Gary Samore,
at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies.
-
- "The immediate objective is to stabilize the situation
before the American elections... Right now if the Americans left there
would be civil war," he said.
-
- U.S. officials point to relative calm in north and south
Iraq, but the relentless violence in and around Baghdad could suck U.S.
forces into a quicksand struggle with now disparate enemies, who may one
day coalesce into a more formidable foe.
-
- Mustafa Alani, of London's Royal United Services Institute
thinktank, said it was premature to assume that foreign militants, local
Islamists, former Baathists and Iraqis angered by U.S. occupiers could
unify for a coordinated guerrilla war.
-
- "But if they are ever able to have central control
and command, to coordinate, the Americans will be in deep trouble."
-
- Guerrillas have already killed 117 American soldiers
since May 1 -- compared to the 114 killed in the war that toppled Saddam
but failed to catch him or find his weapons of mass destruction.
-
- Suicide bombings, including Monday's attacks on Red Cross
headquarters and three police stations in Baghdad, have prompted U.N. and
other foreign aid workers to flee the city in a blow to reconstruction
efforts already hit by crime and sabotage.
-
- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admits he has no quick
fixes to stop the bombers. "The task is to root out terrorists and
terrorist organizations where they are to find them and to capture them
or kill them," he said on Thursday.
-
- But many Iraqis, especially in the "Sunni triangle"
that includes Baghdad, seem to condone anti-U.S. violence, even if they
do not actively support it. Even the bombings of the U.N. and Red Cross
buildings evoked few signs of popular revulsion.
-
- BIGGER SAY FOR IRAQIS
-
- Critics of U.S. policy say Iraqis must get a bigger say
in ruling themselves and taking charge of their own security.
-
- On Thursday, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin
renewed his country's call for a greater U.N. role and urged the formation
of a provisional Iraqi government, possibly before a new constitution is
drafted and elections can be held.
-
- "There are two ways of doing this -- either through
elections, but that can be long and difficult, or through a process like
we had in Afghanistan which would allow an Iraqi assembly to elect a provisional
Iraqi government," he said.
-
- Iraq's U.S. administrator, Paul Bremer, has so far insisted
that a constitution be drafted and approved by referendum before elections
that would install a fully sovereign government.
-
- But the U.S.-picked Governing Council, asked by the U.N.
Security Council to set out by December 15 a timetable for this sequence,
has little power and less popularity with Iraqis.
-
- Several voices on the 25-member council have criticized
the U.S. approach to security and opposed Washington's largely unsuccessful
efforts to get other nations to send troops, arguing that only Iraqis can
tackle the guerrilla threat.
-
- Yet there is no unanimity on how this should be done.
-
- Some demand the recall of entire units of the Iraqi army,
disbanded by Bremer in May as part of a drive to rid Iraq of its Baathist
legacy. Some want the rapid recruitment of new forces.
-
- Others, including a main Shi'ite faction, are frustrated
that the Americans refused to give their militia a security role and instead
demanded its dissolution.
-
- Some analysts argue for a quick recall of the army, much
of which put up no fight during the U.S.-led invasion, while officers still
retain links with the men once under their command.
-
- "There is no time to build a new army, so the Americans
have to accept the unacceptable and use the old one," Alani said.
"The only alternative is to double the number of American forces,
which is politically impossible."
-
- On the political front, he said the United States must
accept that the Governing Council cannot gain legitimacy and must "give
hope to people who are not on the council that everyone is going to be
able to participate, not just the exiles."
-
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-
- http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=reutersEdge&storyID=3731895
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