U.S. response in Iraq may inspire enemies

This week's siege on the city of Fallujah to capture suspects in the deaths and mutilations of civilian U.S. contractors brought condemnation even from one of the most pro-American members of the U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council.

"These operations were a mass punishment for the people of Fallujah," Adnan Pachachi told Al-Arabiya TV. "It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal."

And the U.S. bombing near a Fallujah mosque compound can only inflame more Iraqis, analysts said. The U.S. military says that insurgents fired on troops from the compound, making the holy site a legitimate military target. But many Iraqis care little about that argument.

The U.S. bombing "is the kind of response the insurgents want, because it alienates the civilian population, breeds further anti-American sentiment, and fuels resistance to the military occupation," said the Cato Institute's Charles V. Pena.

Of course, that can work both ways: Insurgents and foreign fighters who put civilians in harm's way can engender the wrath of Iraqis as well.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said this week that Iraqis must choose whose side they are on. "They do have to stand up and say what they believe," he said.

But after a year of occupation -- and billions of dollars in aid -- it's not certain that enough Iraqis believe in the United States.

No coalition effort in Iraq has been so prominent a failure as that aimed at winning "the battle for hearts, minds and perceptions," said defense analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

While "significant progress" has been made in security, in the economy and in politics, the U.S.-led coalition has not convinced Iraqis that it has an effective plan for their future, he said.

Occupation forces have tried unsuccessfully to fight the insurgency with one hand, while repairing damaged infrastructure, stimulating the economy and building a new government with the other.

They've set up local councils, refereed between rival factions during the writing of new laws and tried to come up with a plan for turning sovereignty back to Iraqis.

The U.S. forces also have handed out tons of food; vaccinated 2 million children; renovated 2,300 schools; started a new army, police force and other security agencies; and labored to push electricity, oil production and other sectors to higher than prewar levels in some areas, U.S. Central Command says.

"In spite of progress to date, Iraqis are not yet seeing the benefits on the ground from coalition aid activity in many areas, or such benefits are far too small to meet their expectations," Cordesman said in a report on the first year of Iraq nation-building.

Noting progress has been slow, he said that "helps explain why so large a U.S. aid program has so far had a limited impact on Iraqi attitudes toward the U.S. and 'hearts and minds.'"

Iraqis complain about persistently high unemployment, which fuels discontent among young men, making them more inclined to join the insurgency. Fuel shortages and widespread charges of corruption also have steadily eaten into goodwill, as has tension among factions fearing they won't get a fair share of power when the new government is formed.

Indeed, while recent surveys show a majority of Iraqis think life is better than a year ago, the majority still oppose having foreign forces on their soil -- 51 percent against, to 39 percent in favor.

One poll showed 42 percent of Iraqis see the invasion as liberation, 41 percent as a humiliation.

Former Sen. Bob Kerrey told national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on Thursday that military operations in Iraq worry him.

"I don't think we understand how the Muslim world views us," Kerrey, who sits on the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, told Rice during her testimony. "I think the military operations are dangerously off track. And it's largely a U.S. Army -- 125,000 out of 145,000 -- largely a Christian army in a Muslim nation."

Pena said if the situation in Iraq unravels, "the U.S. military will be faced with its own version of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, where military action to suppress the insurgency creates more new insurgents -- and an endless cycle of violence."