New Iraqi Attacks Intensify Pressure on Bush

Twice in the past two weeks, the Iraqi opposition has hit high-profile U.S. targets that had been largely beyond its reach, an escalation that may prove more significant strategically than tactically because of the increased political pressure it puts on the Bush administration.

Yesterday's hand-held missile attack on an Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter, which killed 16 soldiers and wounded 20, was the first lethal downing of a U.S. aircraft in Iraq since last spring's war. That attack followed by just a week a sophisticated rocket assault on the Baghdad hotel inside U.S. lines where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz was staying. That came on top of lethal bombings of the U.N. headquarters in the capital and then that of the Red Cross.

Some predicted that the latest fighting, combined with the beginning of the presidential primary season three months from now, will intensify the administration's desire to find a way to get out of Iraq.

"While resolutely denying that it is doing so, the Bush administration is looking for an exit," said Andrew J. Bacevich, a retired Army colonel who teaches international relations at Boston University. "With the political season approaching, this terrible loss will only increase the urgency felt within the White House to find a way out."