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Worries about impact on U.S. election delay assaults on rebel-held cities in Iraq

Mark Mazzetti Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration will delay major assaults on rebel-held cities in Iraq until after U.S. elections in November, say administration officials, mindful that large-scale military offensives could affect the U.S. presidential race.

Although American commanders in Iraq have been buoyed by recent successes in insurgent-held towns such as Samarra and Tall Afar, administration and Pentagon officials say they will not try to retake cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi – where insurgents’ grip is strongest and U.S. military casualties could be the greatest – until after Americans vote in what is likely to be a close election.

“When this election’s over, you’ll see us move very vigorously,” said one senior administration official involved in strategic planning, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Once you’re past the election, it changes the political ramifications” of a large-scale offensive, the official said. “We’re not on hold right now. We’re just not as aggressive.”

Any delay in pacifying Iraq’s most troublesome cities, however, could alter the dynamics of a different election – the one in January, when Iraqis are to elect members of a national assembly.

With only four months remaining, U.S. commanders are scrambling to enable voting in as many Iraqi cities as possible to shore up the poll’s legitimacy.

U.S. officials point out that there have been no direct orders to commanders in the field to pause operations in the weeks before the Nov. 2 election. Top administration officials in Washington are simply reluctant to sign off on a major offensive in Iraq at the height of the political season.

Pentagon officials said they see a benefit to holding off on an offensive in the Sunni Triangle, the insurgent-dominated region north and west of Baghdad. By waiting, they allow more time for political negotiations and targeted airstrikes in Fallujah to weaken insurgents.

“We’re having more impact with our airstrikes than we had expected,” said a senior Defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We see no need to rush headlong with hundreds of tanks into Fallujah right now.”

Because U.S. commanders no longer have carte blanche to run military operations inside Iraq, they must seek approval from interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who has his own political future to consider – even though he owes his position to the United States.

U.S. officials said Allawi had signed off on a broad plan to retake insurgent-controlled cities in Iraq before the January election. Allawi approved the recent successful U.S. offensive into Samarra, which U.S. commanders considered necessary only after a local government installed by Allawi buckled under constant attack by insurgents.

Yet there has been occasional friction between U.S. commanders in Baghdad and the Iraqi government that took power after the U.S.-led coalition handed over sovereignty June 28.

In August, top U.S. officers in Iraq and Pentagon officials were angry when Allawi ordered a halt to a day-old, U.S.-led offensive against Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia as it holed up inside the sacred Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf.

Allawi called the cease-fire to allow time for negotiations with al-Sadr that ultimately broke down. U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington argued that such frictions were just part of a gradual process of reducing Iraq’s dependence on the U.S. military.

“We made a deal, and that’s what you get when you set up an interim government,” a senior military official at the Pentagon said. “But the alternative is not recognizing them.”

U.S. officials said the recent offensive operation into Samarra went more smoothly than they had expected and has boosted optimism that more cities can be wrested from insurgent hands before January’s election.

“People looked at Samarra and said, ‘Wow, this works.’ It wasn’t nearly as difficult an operation as we had anticipated,” the senior Defense official said. “After Samarra, we now believe we can do more.”

Still, Pentagon officials say that it may not be militarily feasible to bring every Iraqi city in the Sunni Triangle under control of U.S. forces and the Iraqi government in time for the January election. The military view was contradicted by senior State Department officials who declared in recent congressional testimony that there were no plans to exclude any Iraqi city from voting.

“The State Department can talk about people voting everywhere. But securing Iraq in time for the election can’t happen without the U.S. military,” the senior Defense official said.

During his recent trip to Washington, Allawi expressed his interest in reclaiming insurgent-controlled cities in the Sunni Triangle in time for the January election, even in light of the potentially negative political impact in Iraq that a bloody military operation could have.

Yet officials say the man who owes his job to President Bush – and who might not have such a warm relationship with a President John Kerry – does not want to press his case too hard before the U.S. election in November.

“A lot of his political future depends on our election,” the senior administration official said.

Conversely, much of the U.S. future in Iraq may depend on Allawi and his ability to emerge from the shadow of the U.S. occupation and ensure Iraq reaches its own political milestone in January.

For 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq trying to break the will of a deadly insurgency, that means understanding – and sometimes bending to – the needs of U.S. politics and the demands of their Iraqi hosts.

“We’ll work through as many cities as the Iraqi government wants us to,” said Army Col. Bob Pricone, chief of operations at the U.S.-led coalition forces’ headquarters in Baghdad.