US President George W Bush has full confidence in Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a White House official said today as the Pentagon chief faced a barrage of criticism over the plan for war on Iraq.
The move comes as US troops came in for more criticism after it killed one man and seriously injured another in a shooting incident at a checkpoint. Yesterday, seven civilians were killed in similar incident.
Meanwhile, the pounding of Baghdad and British attempts to capture Basra, Iraq's second city, continue unabated.
In the US, divisions between military and civilian commanders over the size of the force needed for the attack on Iraq have been front-page news in US dailies for several days.
The New York Timesreported today that top military officers accuse Mr Rumsfeld of interfering with the planning for war in order to limit the number of troops deployed to Iraq. Mr Rumsfeld has fervently denied the allegations.
With US forces seeking a second wind as they push towards Baghdad, the newspaper quoted one colonel anonymously as saying that the Defense Secretary "wanted to fight this war on the cheap" and adding "he got what he wanted".
"We're a free country and everybody is allow to criticize. People have that right," White House spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer said later. "The president has faith in the plan, accepts the plan, the plan is working."
Today though, US marines made another error in executing the plan when they shot dead an unarmed driver and badly wounded his passenger at a roadblock south of Baghdad.
The killing came a day after seven women and children were killed in a checkpoint shooting near the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf. But a Washington Post correspondent near the scene said 10 people were killed and suggested troops had fired without giving enough warning.
Marine Corps General Peter Pace said the soldiers had felt threatened and "absolutely did the right thing."
But the killings have fueled anger across the Arab world. "It was a deliberate act in cold blood to avenge September 11. I hope Bush, Blair and their families are pleased," Mr Hamza Abdulrahman, a civil servant in Oman, said.
There have been a number of incidents involving US troops operating checkpoints. In Kuwait, US soldiers shot and wounded the driver of a car which burst past a checkpoint into a base near the Iraqi border after midnight. He was a Kuwaiti army captain hurrying to work.
An Egyptian electrician drove his truck into a group of US soldiers at another base in Kuwait on Sunday, injuring 15. Troops shot and wounded him but his motive was not clear.
As the ground war became more tangled today, new explosions hit Baghdad in the 13th day of the conflict. Heavy air raids pummeled the capital's southern and western outskirts where Republican Guard units man defensive lines.
Huge blasts in central Baghdad overnight sent smoke billowing from a compound used by Saddam and his powerful son Qusay. Another explosion set off a fire at the headquarters of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, headed by Saddam's eldest son Uday.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said the raids on Baghdad had killed 24 people and wounded more than 125 since Monday. He said 32 civilians had been killed and more than 144 wounded in other parts of Iraq.
US forces claimed to have made progress around towns near Baghdad. But fighting is reported at Hindiya and Hilla.
Iraqis are claiming that coalition forces have sustained casualties in and around the southern city of Nassiriya. "The blood of the enemy is flowing profusely," a military spokesman said on Iraqi television.
Agencies