US options in curbing Iraqi attacks

To defeat the deadly insurgents it faces in Iraq, the US may have little choice but to shoulder forward in a long, hard slog.

The Pentagon is unlikely to order radical changes in tactics in response to recent deadly bombings, say experts in and outside the military. Nor are there new magic-bullet antiterror systems on the horizon.

Instead, the best option for commanders is likely to be continuous, marginal improvement in what they're doing now: patrol more, patrol better, train more Iraqi police, and, especially, focus more resources on understanding the foe.

"This war is sort of a terrorist operation ... and what you need to beat the terrorist is good intelligence," says Marcus Corbin, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information in Washington.

This week's string of deadly attacks in some areas of Iraq has rocked Washington policymakers back on their heels and led to calls for a reassessment of the US military effort.

On Tuesday unknown assailants struck again in Baghdad, assassinating a deputy mayor in a hit-and-run shooting. A car bomb exploded in the tense city of Fallujah, killing at least four.

White House officials said the attacks showed that anti-US elements were desperate to stop steady progress towards Iraqi normalization. But they also admitted that the ferocity of resistance to the US occupation has taken them by surprise.

"We didn't expect it would be quite this intense this long," said Secretary of State Colin Powell in a recent interview on NBC.

Deadly as they have been, the attacks so far are not of a scale that by themselves would drive the US military away, note experts. Some say it's important to note that one strategic aim of the Iraqi enemy is similar to the strategic aim of the North Vietnamese, during the Vietnam War: defeat the enemy by undercutting its political support back home.

Similarly, the Iraqi insurgents are clearly trying to discourage their fellow countrymen from cooperating with the Americans. "The most important thing is to make it clear that you can't be chased away, and that we're committed to the long term," says Lee Feinstein, acting director of the Washington program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

That being said, the US still has to show progress if the general Iraqi population is not to sour on their occupiers. Some experts say that if things are not on the upswing by spring, restiveness may spread to Iraq's silent majority.

This doesn't mean the US has only months to turn Iraq into Switzerland. It does mean that ordinary Iraqis need to come to believe that their lives are going to continue to improve, day by day.

"You have to both demonstrate that you're able to bring security to Baghdad, and you have to demonstrate that you're able to hand off responsibility for security to Iraqis over time," says Mr. Feinstein.

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