the consequences of fallujah, page-4

Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, wants another two brigades of combat troops to help deal with rising violence in Iraq.

But those additional troops — still might not be adequate to stem an increasingly bold insurgency, the analysts say.

• The Iraqi insurgency has moved into a more deadly phase in which massed attacks on U.S. troops have replaced isolated ambushes with homemade bombs.

• U.S. troops, working with Iraqi forces, have been unable to seal off Iraq's borders and prevent foreign fighters from entering. Bush said he was "disappointed" in the performance of some Iraqi troops.

• New guerrilla tactics, including the taking of dozens of hostages has threatened everything from foreign investment to the U.S. military's ability to supply troops.

• American forces have been forced to engage in deadly urban warfare in Iraqi cities.

• Help from other nations, which now contribute about 24,000 troops, is set to wane soon.

Those factors have compounded what critics see as flawed planning assumptions by the Pentagon, whose leaders a year ago said most Iraqis would embrace the occupation and U.S. troop levels would be reduced by this summer.

Before the war, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki warned Congress that 225,000 U.S. troops would be needed in Iraq for years; Pentagon officials attacked his estimate as wildly inaccurate.

U.S. officials say that new troops could be hard to find, and that there are relatively few combat units that are capable and haven't already been assigned to Iraq.

Alternatively, the Pentagon could freeze the rotation home of troops now in Iraq or accelerate the deployment of units notified on March 1 that they face Iraq duty.

The larger issue, particularly for the Army, is whether lengthy duty in Iraq sparks an exodus of soldiers. Bush said U.S. troops will stay in Iraq "as long as necessary."

"We are in a race against time to develop indigenous Iraqi forces before American forces vote with their feet and leave the military," says Andrew Krepinevich, director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments