By Thomas E. Ricks and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 7, 2003; Page A01
Recent Iraqi attacks on U.S. troops have demonstrated a new tactical sophistication and coordination that raise the specter of the U.S. occupation force becoming enmeshed in a full-blown guerrilla war, military experts said yesterday.
The new approaches employed in the Iraqi attacks last week are provoking concern among some that what once was seen as a mopping-up operation against the dying remnants of a deposed government is instead becoming a widening battle against a growing and organized force that could keep tens of thousands of U.S. troops busy for months.
Pentagon officials continue to insist that the U.S. military is not caught in an anti-guerrilla campaign in Iraq, that the fighting still is limited mainly to the Sunni heartland northwest of Baghdad and that progress is being made elsewhere in the country. "There's been an awful lot of work done," Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told "Fox News Sunday" in an interview taped last week. "A lot of the country is relatively stable."
But a growing number of military specialists, and some lawmakers, are voicing concern about trends in Iraq. There is even some quiet worry at the Pentagon, where some officers contend privately that the size of the U.S. deployment in Iraq -- now about 150,000 troops -- is inadequate for force protection, much less for peacekeeping. The Army staff is reexamining force requirements and looking again at the numbers generated in the months before the war, said a senior officer who asked not to be named.
"If you talk to the guys in Iraq, they will tell you that it's urban combat over there," the officer said. "They all are saying, 'What we have is not enough to keep the peace.' "
"In Iraq," Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the intelligence committee, said on CNN's "Late Edition" yesterday, "we're now fighting an anti-guerrilla . . . effort."
Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said: "Our troops are stretched very, very thin. We should ask other countries" to send troops, including Germany, France, India and Egypt.
"It is an absolute mystery to me" that NATO has not been asked to authorize the deployment of member forces in Iraq, Levin, who just returned from a three-day visit to Iraq, said yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press." Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) noted, however, that the administration anticipates "30,000 troops from other nations will be involved before year's end."
But it is not clear that those foreign troops will be forthcoming in the numbers expected, especially if fighting in Iraq intensifies.
"The increasing enemy activity in Iraq is very unsettling," said retired Marine Lt. Col. John Poole, a specialist in small-unit infantry tactics. "It could mean that the situation has started to escalate into a guerrilla war."