US: Sharp differences have arisen ahead of a major throw of the dice to regain the initiative and control no-go regions, reports Conor O'Clery, in New York
Contradictory statements from US military and civilian leaders in recent days have contributed to an impression of an administration at odds with itself over how to cope with the growing insurgency in Iraq.
Yesterday Gen John Abizaid, commander of US troops in the Middle East, described as not "accurate" a recent report from US intelligence services that the future for Iraq next year ranged from instability to civil war.
And Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell said that all Iraqis must be able to vote in January elections, directly challenging Secretary of Defence Mr Donald Rumsfeld's contention last week that a partial vote would be better than none at all.
What seems not to be in doubt, however, is that the US is committed to a major throw of the dice to regain the initiative in Iraq, and that it will take the form of an offensive against insurgents who control several cities to secure them before the January elections.
Gen Abizaid said that "through a combination of political and military action we will do whatever's necessary to bring areas in Iraq under Iraqi control." He added: "I also think we will have to fight our way through elections."
Interviewed from Doha on NBC's Meet the Press, the general painted a bleak picture of the long-term future, saying, "Americans need to brace themselves for a long war in the Middle East and Central Asia" where extremists were "just starting to gain strength".
The US commander conceded there may be places where Iraqis cannot vote, while Mr Powell declared on CNN that all Iraqis must have the chance to vote if the election is to be credible.
Asked about Mr Rumsfeld's comment that if elections could not take place in three-quarters or four-fifths of Iraq, then "so be it, nothing's perfect in life," Mr Powell said that polling stations should be made available to all Iraqis and the election must be "something that will stand the test of the international community's examination."
He said the major thrust of US efforts would be to bring back no-go areas under government control, a task which US marines attempted in Falluja earlier this year before being forced to withdraw after three days in the face of Arab criticism over civilian casualties and destruction.
Sharp differences between the Pentagon and the State Department were also on display when Gen Abizaid took issue with a recent comment by Deputy Secretary of State Mr Richard Armitage that many Iraqi police were "shake-and-bake" recruits ill-trained for the job. "That is just not true," he said and Mr Armitage "should give them a little respect".
Mr Powell said planning was under way for an Iraqi conference, possibly next month, of the world's leading industrialised nations and regional powers, including Iran and Syria, "to persuade them that this is the time to help Iraq, so that the region can become stable".
Both Gen Abizaid and Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who visited the US last week, gave vocal support to a central theme of President George Bush's re-election campaign, that the war in Iraq had made America safer.
The US commander said fighting extremists in Iraq had "kept the country free of attack," and Mr Allawi went further, linking 9/11 and Saddam Hussein by saying, "I assure you if Saddam was still there terrorists would be hitting again in Washington and New York". The official 9/11 Commission concluded there was no link between Iraq and the attacks on the US.
Mr Allawi also bolstered Mr Bush's upbeat assessment of conditions in Iraq, telling Washington Post editors on Friday that "for now the only place which is not really that safe is Falluja, downtown Falluja. The rest, there are varying degrees. Some - most - of the provinces are really quite safe."
The interim Iraqi leader claimed trouble was confined to three of Iraq's 18 provinces, but the Washington Post yesterday cited security reports that a majority of the hostile acts committed against US and Iraqi security forces over the past two weeks had occurred outside these three provinces.
The Washington Post also cited a confidential survey by a US-appointed private security firm stating that insurgent and terrorist attacks were increasing and spreading to parts of the country that had been relatively peaceful.
The number of attacks had gone up from 40 or 50 to 70 a day before the June 28th hand-over, according to the report from Kroll Security International for the US Agency for International Development. Some 250 Iraqis and 29 American soldiers have died in violence in the past two weeks.
A classified National Intelligence Estimate presented to President Bush in July predicted that the future for Iraq next year ranged from continued instability to civil war. Mr Bush dismissed the scenarios last week outlined as "guesses", a word he changed later to "estimates".
Asked yesterday if he believed the intelligence report was accurate, Gen Abizaid said, "No, I don't think it is accurate. It's overly pessimistic."
Foreign policy and national security will be the topics of the first presidential debate on Thursday. Mr Bush is expected to argue that removing Saddam Hussein has made America safer, while Mr Kerry is likely to claim that, as he did on Friday, that the focus on Iraq "let Osama bin Laden slip away".
In the increasingly hard-hitting advertising wars, a pro-Bush group called Progress for America Voter Fund has begun showing commercials in Iowa and Wisconsin featuring Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and asking, "Would you trust Kerry against these fanatic killers?" In a response, the Kerry campaign issued an advert claiming the Bush-Cheney ticket is "using the appalling and divisive strategy of playing politics with the war on terror, a strategy that undermines the efforts to combat terrorists in America and puts George Bush's own ambition ahead of the national good."