More troops may worsen violence

WASHINGTON — President Bush's plan to send U.S. and Iraqi reinforcements to Baghdad to aggressively confront Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias likely will touch off a more dangerous phase of the war, featuring months of fighting in the streets of Baghdad, current and former military officials warned.

The prospect of a more intense battle in the Iraqi capital could put U.S. military commanders in exactly the sort of tough urban fight that war planners strove to avoid during the 2003 invasion of the country. And while Bush insisted there is no timetable associated with the troop increase, military officials said sustaining it for more than a few months would place a major new strain on U.S. forces already feeling burdened by an unexpectedly long and difficult war in Iraq.

Most of all, the White House's insistence that all insurgents and militias, both Sunni and Shiite, be confronted may mean the U.S. military will wind up fighting the Madhi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. That militia is estimated by some intelligence officials to have grown over the past year to about 60,000 fighters. Some in the Pentagon consider it more effective than the Iraqi army.

Among concerns is that the fighting could become a citywide version of the sharp combat this week along central Baghdad's Haifa Street, in which U.S. jets and attack helicopters conducted airstrikes just north of the U.S. Embassy. "There is likely going to be some increased violence in the short run," a senior administration official predicted Wednesday.

Al-Sadr is one of the most powerful figures in the Iraqi government, and he has forced it and the U.S. military to back down in the past. Yet, if the Madhi Army is not confronted, the offensive may falter and the sectarian conflict may intensify, because Sunnis will feel it is just one more way of attacking them while letting Shiite death squads go free, military experts said.

"If our troops do not enter Sadr City, they belittle the notion of a surge because they would leave a leading militia unscathed," said Patrick Cronin of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a defense think tank.

The last time the U.S. military fought both Sunni and Shiite elements in Iraq was the spring of 2004, one of the most difficult times in the war. U.S. commanders were stunned to face a two-front conflict against Sunni insurgents in Anbar province and Shiite fighters in Baghdad and across south-central Iraq.

Almost all roads leading into Baghdad were closed to traffic. Inside the capital, anti-U.S. elements began dynamiting highway overpasses, slowing traffic and depriving U.S. supply convoys of their best defense against ambushes and roadside bombs — speed. Worst of all, troops from the Army's 1st Cavalry Division fighting in al-Sadr's stronghold of about 2 million Shiites in eastern Baghdad became enmeshed in battles resembling the movie "Black Hawk Down." Al-Sadr's militias besieged isolated U.S. patrols and took over police stations, schools and municipal buildings.

One Army officer at the Pentagon suggested that there might be raids into Sadr City against leaders of Shiite death squads, but that most of the anti-al-Sadr effort would be indirect. For example, he said, checkpoints on the perimeter of Sadr City might be used to limit militia movements while political and economic approaches whittled away support for al-Sadr.

"How do you get rid of the Mahdi Army?" the Army officer asked. "You have to supplant them with a systematic approach. If you go after their armed wing, even if you kill every one they'll grow another."

Bush said Wednesday night that it was clear that there have not been sufficient troops in Iraq, and that part of the difference in this approach is that the plan will be resourced adequately. That view raised skepticism among military experts who wondered, as one said, how a "thin green line" of 20,000 additional soldiers could affect the security situation in a large city where many residents are hostile to the U.S. presence.