Chicago Sun Times
http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/cst-nws-iraq08.html

Getting Saddam may not end attacks
December 8, 2003

BY JIM KRANE




BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Guerrillas killed a U.S. soldier with a roadside bomb in northern Iraq on Sunday, and a U.S. military commander said insurgent attacks might not abate even if American troops kill or capture Saddam Hussein.

A soldier from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division died and two others in his unit were wounded when rebels detonated a bomb as a their convoy drove through the center of Mosul at midday, Master Sgt. Kelly Tyler said.

''I heard an explosion and came running toward the site of the attack and saw three soldiers, one of them covered with blood,'' said Bahaa Hussein, a student. Mosul is 250 miles north of Baghdad.

The top commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said attacks could surge ahead of a July 1 deadline for a transfer of authority from the U.S.-led coalition to a transitional Iraqi government.

''We expect to see an increase in violence as we move forward toward sovereignty at the end of June,'' Sanchez said.

''The killing or capturing of Saddam Hussein will have an impact on the level of violence, but it will not end it,'' he said. ''It won't be the end-all solution.''

''It's a needle in a haystack,'' he said of the hunt for the ousted Iraqi leader. ''Clearly we haven't found the right haystack. . . . We are moving under the assumption that he is still in the country, that he is still operating.''

After a daylong trip to Iraq on Saturday, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he wants senior commanders in Iraq to consider whether the Pentagon underestimated how many U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces would be needed before a sovereign Iraqi government takes over next summer.

He said he worried that the current goal of 220,000 Iraqi security forces may not be able to be increased later if need be.

''I worry that budgets will begin to get committed, and we may not know if we need more until sometime, for example, in February or March or April,'' Rumsfeld said on the flight to Washington, arriving early Sunday. By then, he said, the money might not be available.

The number of Iraqis now in uniform is now said to be about 140,000, many of whom were rushed through training programs. Rumsfeld sees the buildup of those forces as the key to completing the military mission there in the aftermath of Saddam's deposed dictatorship.

President Bush's chief of staff dismissed as ''a moot point'' any lingering question about whether Bush relied on faulty intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Andy Card also rejected charges from fellow Republican Newt Gingrich that the administration's postwar policies went ''off a cliff'' after an impressive invasion that deposed Saddam Hussein's government.

Overall intelligence has been ''very, very good,'' Card said Sunday. But, he added, ''Intelligence is a collection of dots, and then an analysis on how those dots might be connected. Some of those dots may not be what they appear to be, and some of the connections may not have been what people would have suggested.''

Gingrich, former speaker of the House, said in the Dec. 15 issue of Newsweek magazine that he was proud of what Gen. Tommy Franks, who planned and commanded the American-led invasion of Iraq, did ''up to the moment of deciding how to transfer power to the Iraqis. Then we go off a cliff.'' Gingrich is a member of the bipartisan Defense Policy Board, which advises Rumsfeld.

Card bristled at the charge.

''Well, Newt Gingrich is not all-knowing. And I'm sure he has opinions. He has always expressed them,'' Card said on the CBS program ''Face the Nation.'' ''Things are going better than they could have been expected to go at this time, and we're making great progress.''

AP