If At First You Don't Succeed ...

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P> 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 19 Italians and 13 Iraqis were killed when a car bomb blew up an Italian base in Nasiriyah. 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. In a further sign that the U.S. means business, General John Abizaid, head of Central Command, and some 200 of his war planners will soon move from Tampa, Fla., to the forward command position in Qatar that they occupied during last spring's battle to topple Saddam.

The Administration now knows that coalition forces alone cannot bring peace to Iraq. As the cia report said—and the Pentagon acknowledges—Iraqis will always be better than the Americans at ferreting out intelligence about insurgents. That helps explain why many in Washington privately say they regret Bremer's decision to disband the Iraqi army on May 23. U.S. officials are urgently searching for potential leaders of a new Iraqi army. An Arab businessman in close touch with the U.S. government tells TIME that one commander who has attracted attention is Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai, a Sunni Muslim who was Saddam's Minister of Defense. Though Hashim was on the U.S.'s most-wanted list, this source says he was in contact with the U.S. before the war and was consulted by American officials after he was taken into custody in Mosul. A former CIA official says Hashim is "a great guy, basically an officer's officer." He adds that Hashim would "bring a real sense of empowerment" to Iraqis who never left the country and now feel overshadowed by formerly exiled figures close to Washington. But among Iraqi exiles, Hashim remains a hated figure. If he was appointed head of the army, says one former intelligence officer who has returned from abroad, "we would kill him."

The deteriorating security situation is only half the Administration's problem. 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. Some continue to have primary homes where they lived in exile, and few have bothered to travel around Iraq to build support for the body's authority. 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," he says, "and came here without knowledge of the traditions and habits of the country."

Even those who for professional reasons might be expected to support the council often knock it. "The Governing Council is composed of prima donnas," says an official of the CPA. Qubad Talabani, Jalal Talabani's son and chief political adviser, bluntly describes the organization as "a large body that is unable to make decisions. Everything gets clogged up in hours-long debates.