U.S. must act swiftly against Iraqi guerrillas

The war in Iraq has entered a deadly new phase, and it is costing the lives of American soldiers and Iraqi militants.

When the siege of coalition forces ended with the takeover of Iraq's capital city, it was too easy to think that the worst was over.

Now American troops are imperiled every day throughout Iraq by snipers and bands of roving guerrillas. As a result, it is even more difficult to carry out the current mission of restoring order and rebuilding Iraq.

Hundreds of Iraqis have been arrested in recent days, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says that, as a result of American peacekeepers, there is less violent crime in Baghdad than in Washington, D.C. -- a city whose notoriously high crime rate beleaguers large portions of the city seldom seen by government officials or sightseers.

Rumsfeld said last week that much of the guerrilla resistance in Iraq is coming from "small elements" without any central control. But there were also reports that attack squads were finding safe haven in neighboring Syria and Jordan and darting into Iraq to target Americans.

The attackers that imperil U.S. forces come mostly from four main groups: loyalists to Saddam Hussein, radical Sunni Muslims, holy warriors who aren't Iraqis and disgruntled former soldiers in the Iraqi army.

Without a quick and effective effort to quell these guerrilla attacks, U.S. forces will be hampered more and more in their efforts to address basic needs -- water, food, shelter, power, sanitation and a restoration of business and industry -- while U.S. diplomats continue their efforts to assist in the formation of a new Iraqi government.

The worst fear would be that the guerrilla momentum builds to the point where every resource has to be focused on combat rather than enabling Iraqis to take over civil police functions. Unless these attacks are stopped, it is all too likely that those who wish to remove any U.S. presence from Iraq will be emboldened to pool their resources and become a fighting force of incalculable strength.

At the same time the United States is dealing with the future of Iraq's internal affairs, it also must give close attention to neighboring nations who sympathies toward Iraq are not always in the best interests of the objectives of coalition nations.

Syria, Jordan and Iran all pose serious concerns either by providing refuge for supporters of Saddam Hussein or by using any excuse to undermine American objectives. The United States has applied diplomatic pressure to each of these neighboring countries.

It must pay particular attention to Syria and Jordan, either of which could be harboring Saddam Hussein himself and some of his weapons of mass destruction.

The war in Iraq is far from over. And the quicker there is an effective end to guerrilla attacks, the sooner the real goal of a stable government free of a murderous tyrant will be achieved.