WASHINGTON — Almost a year after acknowledging they were facing a well-armed guerrilla war in Iraq, the Pentagon and commanders in the Middle East are being criticized by some top Bush administration officials, military officers and defense experts who accuse the military of failing to develop a coherent, winning strategy against the insurgency.
Inadequate intelligence, poor assessments of enemy strength, testy relations with U.S. civilian authorities in Baghdad and an inconsistent application of force remain key problems many observers say the military must address before U.S. and Iraqi forces can quell the insurgents.
"It's disappointing that we haven't been able to have better insight into the command and control of the insurgents," said one senior official of the now-dissolved Coalition Provisional Authority, recently returned from Baghdad and speaking on condition of anonymity. "And you've got to have that if you're going to have effective military operations."
It was July 16, 2003, when Army Gen. John Abizaid stood at a Pentagon podium during his first news conference as head of U.S. Central Command and declared -- after weeks of Pentagon denials -- that U.S. troops were fighting a "classic guerrilla-type war" in Iraq.
Now, after a year of violence and hundreds of U.S. combat deaths, some officials and experts are frustrated that a more effective counterinsurgency plan has not materialized and that the hand-over of power to an interim Iraqi government last week was unlikely to significantly improve the security situation.
"We're going to have the same cast of characters in Washington and the same commander [Abizaid] in the field," said Andrew Krepinevich of the Center of Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, an expert on counterinsurgency warfare. "What gives you a sense of confidence we're going to become a lot more competent at something we haven't shown a great deal of competence at doing for a year?"
Some top American officials bristle at the criticism and say the U.S.-led coalition's plan has been consistent from the beginning: to bring security to Iraq in preparation for an eventual hand-over to Iraqi forces.
"Our strategy is not complicated. It is to train Iraqis as quickly as we possibly can and as efficiently as we possibly can, and to set the conditions so they can take charge of their own security," said a senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
