US military commanders in Baghdad and Washington gave a sobering new assessment of the war in Iraq on Wednesday, adding to the mood of anxiety that prompted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to make a trip to Baghdad last weekend to consult with Iraq's new government.
In interviews and briefings this week, some of the generals pulled back from recent suggestions, some by the same officers, that positive trends in Iraq could allow a major drawdown in the 138,000 US troops late this year or early next year.
One senior officer suggested on Wednesday that US military involvement could last "many years."
General John Abizaid, the top US officer in the Middle East, said in a briefing in Washington that one problem was the disappointing progress in developing Iraqi paramilitary police units cohesive enough to mount an effective challenge to the insurgents and allow US forces to reduce their role in fighting.
In Baghdad, a senior officer said on Wednesday in a background briefing that the 21 car bombings in Baghdad so far this month almost matched the total of 25 in all of last year. Against this, he said, there has been a lull in insurgents' activity in Baghdad in recent days after months of some of the bloodiest attacks, a trend that suggested that US pressure, including the capture of key bomb makers, had left the insurgents incapable of mounting protracted offensives.
But the officer said that despite US troops' recent successes in disrupting insurgent cells, which have resulted in the arrest of 1,100 suspects in Baghdad alone in the past 80 days, the success of American goals in Iraq was not assured.
"I think that this could still fail," the officer said at the briefing, referring to the US effort in Iraq. "It's much more likely to succeed, but it could still fail."
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