US Public Patience Wearing Thin - Iraq At Pivotal Moment

Faced with a deadly insurgency abroad and a tide of complaints at home, the White House is hitting the throttle - pushing for faster action on crucial aspects of its strategy toward Iraq.

Thus the US is accelerating its timetable for Iraqi self-government, redoubling military efforts against insurgents via Operation Iron Hammer, and turning up the volume on efforts to sell the American public on the long-term benefit of Iraq transformation.

This movement comes at a moment when the US effort in Iraq may have reached a turning point. A new CIA assessment portrays Iraq as a nation on a knife-edge, balanced between democracy and chaos. Absent a change in direction, the US drive to transform Iraq could still fail, it says.

Meanwhile, last week Bush attempted to lift America's eyes from the short-term problems in Iraq to the long-term possibilities. In a speech at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington he pledged an effort to bring democracy to the Middle East comparable to the effort that ended communism in Eastern Europe.

New Urgency, New Risks in 'Iraqification'

At least four factors forced the administration to overhaul its military and political strategy in Iraq, despite the danger that a new approach might actually diminish U.S. control over the country's future.

The foremost factor is the security risk -- from an Iraqi opposition that has become more intense, more effective, more sophisticated and more extensive. The other three are the failure of the Iraqi Governing Council to act, the Dec. 15 U.N. deadline for an Iraqi plan of action and the U.S. elections just a year away, according to administration and congressional officials and U.S. analysts.

"We so underestimated and underplanned and underthought about a post-Saddam Iraq that we've been woefully unprepared," said Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a Vietnam War veteran and member of the Foreign Relations Committee who has frequently visited Iraq. "Now we have a security problem. We have a reality problem. And we have a governance problem. . . . And time is not on our side."