If At First You Don't Succeed...
Faced with growing violence, George W. Bush changes the playbook for handing Iraq back to its people. Now all Jerry Bremer has to do is figure out whether the country can meet the new timetable

It's hard to have an afternoon's uninterrupted fun when you are the National Security Adviser. On Nov. 9, Condoleezza Rice, a passionate football fan, was at FedEx Field outside Washington, watching the Redskins play the Seattle Seahawks, when she got a call from L. Paul (Jerry) Bremer, the American proconsul in Iraq. For the better part of two weeks, Bremer and Rice had been discussing how to speed the transfer of power to Iraqis. Both agreed that the matter now required face time with Administration principals in Washington. When the conversation resumed the next day, it took just a quick look at calendars–President Bush was off to London for a state visit, then to Texas for Thanksgiving, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was about to leave for Asia–for everyone to recognize that Bremer should get back to Washington, fast.

Together with Robert Blackwill, a veteran diplomat who is Rice's point man on Iraq and had been visiting Baghdad, Bremer flew to Washington. So urgent was his trip that he put off a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller, whose troops make up the third largest contingent in the occupying force in Iraq. The two days of meetings in Washington that followed turned out to be fateful.

At a press conference in Baghdad on Saturday, Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader who holds the rotating presidency of the Iraqi Governing Council, announced the new scheme. In effect, Bremer has junked the plan for Iraqi self-rule that he unveiled last summer. Under the original proposal, the council, made up of Iraqi notables appointed by the U.S., was to propose how a constitution might be drafted by December. After the document was written, it would be ratified in a referendum, and only then would a sovereign Iraqi government be elected. The whole process could have taken up to four years. In recent weeks, however, it had become plain that the council would not meet the December deadline, which had been enshrined in a U.N. Security Council resolution. "They got things built into an impasse. They basically said to us, ‘Help us get out of this,' " Bremer told TIME last week. "We understood the desire for them to have sovereignty more quickly, and we wanted them to have sovereignty. We had to find a way forward."

Under the new plan, the Governing Council will be wound up at the end of May. A national assembly will be elected from Iraq's provinces–the details on how that will happen are still murky–and the assembly will form an executive council. At that time the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which Bremer heads, will dissolve, and sovereignty will be devolved to a provisional Iraqi government. A constitution will follow. At the same time the Administration is preparing to accelerate the transfer of political power to Iraqis, it is also looking for ways to augment Iraqi military capabilities. Sources tell TIME that the Administration is rethinking its opposition to bringing back senior Iraqi army officers who served under Saddam Hussein.

The change in plan is more than a minor course correction. It is an admission by the Administration that the basis of its policies since the spring has crumbled. Bremer's initial plan for transferring power to Iraqis had seven points, which should have been a warning. Any seven-step program is almost by definition a leisurely one.

TIME is what the Administration now knows it does not have. Without some swift assumption of real power by Iraqis, local resentment of coalition forces will only grow. As a leaked report from the cia station chief in Baghdad details, the number, intensity and organizational sophistication of attacks on coalition forces are all on the increase. Last week seven Americans were killed in six attacks, and at least another 17 died when two U.S. helicopters crashed in midair as one apparently dodged shooting from the ground.

To address the security challenge, the U.S. has gone back to a war footing. Coalition forces launched an offensive, code-named Operation Iron Hammer, that included attacks from helicopter gunships on supposed safe houses and arms dumps used by the opposition.

Long before last week's policy change, it had become evident that the Governing Council has not gelled into a body that can be presented–to Iraqis or a skeptical world–as the nucleus of Iraqi self-rule. The council's performance has been lackluster. At times in the past four months, half its members have been outside the country. On the Iraqi street, the council has never garnered much support. Mohammed Thabit Rifat, an accountant in the Ministry of Finance, reflects a common perception among Iraqis that the council is dominated by exiles who enjoyed life abroad while everyone else suffered under Saddam. "They lived outside the country in luxury," says Rifat, "and came here without knowledge of the traditions and habits of the country."

—from TIME, November 24, 2003

Questions

1. What is the key difference between the original plan for Iraqi sovereignty and the new approach?

2. How is the U.S. addressing the deteriorating security situation in Iraq?