BAGHDAD: Iraq may not yet have spun beyond control, but the United States is groping to counter the hostility stirred by its occupation among Iraqis forced to pay a heavy price for freedom from Saddam Hussein.

Washington’s critics inside and outside Iraq — even those warm to the overall goal of a stable, democratic, prosperous nation — say its blunt security-first approach is failing.

The US military has now lost more combat dead in the six months since President George W. Bush declared the war all but over than it did during the initial conflict — not a welcome statistic for an incumbent hoping to be re-elected next year.

“The (Bush) administration is very concerned that public support for the occupation is not strong,” said Gary Samore, at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“The immediate objective is to stabilise the situation before the American elections... Right now if the Americans left there would be civil war,” he said.

US officials point to relative calm in north and south Iraq, but the relentless violence in and around Baghdad could suck US forces into a quicksand struggle with now disparate enemies, who may one day coalesce into a more formidable foe.

Mustafa Alani, of London’s Royal United Services Institute thinktank, said it was premature to assume that foreign militants, local Islamists, former Baathists and Iraqis angered by US occupiers could unify for a coordinated guerrilla war.

“But if they are ever able to have central control and command, to coordinate, the Americans will be in deep trouble.”

Guerrillas have already killed 117 American soldiers since May 1 — compared to the 114 killed in the war that toppled Saddam but failed to catch him or find his weapons of mass destruction.

Suicide bombings, including Monday’s attacks on Red Cross headquarters and three police stations in Baghdad, have prompted — and other foreign aid workers to flee the city in a blow to reconstruction efforts already hit by crime and sabotage.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admits he has no quick fixes to stop the bombers. “The task is to root out terrorists and terrorist organisations where they are to find them and to capture them or kill them,” he said on Thursday.

But many Iraqis, especially in the “Sunni triangle” that includes Baghdad, seem to condone anti-US violence, even if they do not actively support it. Even the bombings of the — and Red Cross buildings evoked few signs of popular revulsion.

Critics of US policy say Iraqis must get a bigger say in ruling themselves and taking charge of their own security.

On Thursday, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin renewed his country’s call for a greater — role and urged the formation of a provisional Iraqi government, possibly before a new constitution is drafted and elections can be held.

“There are two ways of doing this — either through elections, but that can be long and difficult, or through a process like we had in Afghanistan which would allow an Iraqi assembly to elect a provisional Iraqi government,” he said.

Iraq’s US administrator, Paul Bremer, has so far insisted that a constitution be drafted and approved by referendum before elections that would install a fully sovereign government.

But the US-picked Governing Council, asked by the — Security Council to set out by December 15 a timetable for this sequence, has little power and less popularity with Iraqis.

Several voices on the 25-member council have criticised the US approach to security and opposed Washington’s largely unsuccessful efforts to get other nations to send troops, arguing that only Iraqis can tackle the guerrilla threat.

Yet there is no unanimity on how this should be done.

Some demand the recall of entire units of the Iraqi army, disbanded by Bremer in May as part of a drive to rid Iraq of its Baathist legacy. Some want the rapid recruitment of new forces.

Others, including a main Shia faction, are frustrated that the Americans refused to give their militia a security role and instead demanded its dissolution.

Some analysts argue for a quick recall of the army, much of which put up no fight during the US-led invasion, while officers still retain links with the men once under their command.

“There is no time to build a new army, so the Americans have to accept the unacceptable and use the old one,” Alani said. “The only alternative is to double the number of American forces, which is politically impossible.”—Reuters