Washington

It's been a wartime honeymoon of astonishingly short duration.

Not even a month into the military campaign in Afghanistan, rumblings of discontent are being heard in Washington over how the Bush administration is handling the war on terrorism. A few prominent voices are even suggesting that, so far at least, the US is losing the war both abroad and at home.

One of the most cutting public criticisms has come from John McCain, a respected Republican senator and Vietnam war hero. Late last week, he faulted the administration for fighting the military war in "half measures." Shed a tear for innocent lives lost, he urged, and "get on with it."

Even officials within the administration have told reporters (anonymously, of course) of their dismay with the government's confused handling of the anthrax cases. These regrets coincide with new polls showing the first erosion of public confidence in Washington's ability to meet the terrorist threat, though Americans still strongly back President Bush himself.

"Americans will continue to feel that this is not a moment for questioning the president per se," says Daniel Benjamin, a terrorism expert in the Clinton administration. "But there is going to be more questioning of his advisers and the policies he has in place."

In Afghanistan, the criticism is grounded not so much in a single wrong step as in a collective stack of small setbacks. Among these: An on-the-ground raid by US Special Operations Forces yielded limited intelligence. A key Taliban opposition figure was captured and executed. Bombs have strayed to civilian targets, including the two-time hit of an International Red Cross warehouse.

"We are losing - losing the first round," says international-affairs columnist Robert Kagan, in one of the most blunt assessments yet of the administration's military strategy. Speaking at a forum of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace this week, Mr. Kagan argued that, as in Vietnam, "we have built our strategy, such as it is, around constraints."

Just as the United States was mindful to keep China out of the Vietnam War, it is restricted now by various coalitions and political considerations, he says.

Further, the Bush team is constricted by a reluctance to fully commit ground troops, he says, although the public seems ready to back such a move. Sixty-one percent of Americans say the war in Afghanistan would be worth the cost of "several thousand" US troops, according to a New York Times-CBS poll this week.

Senator McCain, too, is cautioning against relying too much on air power. America's enemies, he said in an Oct. 26 Wall Street Journal op-ed, doubt its determination to use "all force necessary" to achieve victory. He also advises against suspending military actions during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan - something the Pentagon says it will not do.

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