HILLARY Clinton last night said the United States needed a bigger presence in Iraq, as military leaders warned Iraqi rebels were becoming more organised and determined in their attacks on coalition forces.
The US senator urged the Bush administration to seek United Nations involvement to increase the legitimacy of the coalition presence in Iraq and said there was not the "right mix of troops" to get the job done.
Speaking after visiting US troops i
n Afghanistan and Iraq, the former First Lady said: "We need more [military police], we need more intelligence, we need more civil affairs, we need a bigger presence [in Iraq].
"Clearly, what we are doing now is not an effective strategy. We need to get the UN back in as quickly as possible to internationalise this."
Her comments came in the wake of one of the bloodiest battles between the US and anti-coalition fighters since the fall of Saddam Hussein, when Iraqi rebels ambushed convoys delivering new bank notes in the northern town of Samarra.
US forces say 54 Iraqis died in the battle on Sunday although local residents disputed the claim, saying fewer than ten Iraqis were killed.
"Here it seems they had the training to stand and fight," said Captain Andy Deponai, whose tank was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade during the fire-fight on Sunday in the northern city.
The well co-ordinated ambushes signalled an escalation of guerrilla tactics. A dozen cars lay gutted and crumpled in the streets yesterday, and bullet holes pocked many buildings. A mosque and a kindergarten were also damaged.
In Baghdad, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said that in one of the ambushes, a dozen attackers dashed out of a mosque and opened fire on US military vehicles. They also fired from alleyways and rooftops.
"It was a large group of people," Brig Gen Kimmitt said of the assaults. "Are we looking at this one closely? Yes. Is this something larger than we’ve seen over the past couple of months? Yes. Are we concerned about it? We’ll look at it and take appropriate measures in future operations."
Elsewhere in Iraq, gunmen yesterday ambushed a US military convoy west of Baghdad, killing one soldier, the US military said. The attack with small arms fire occurred near Habbaniyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad.
In Baghdad, a US army general said Iraqi insurgents in the capital appeared to have a central leadership that finances attacks and instructs eight to 12 rebel bands operating in the city when to attack and when to lie low.
But Brigadier General Martin Dempsey said there was no evidence of a central command-and-control structure, and that instructions were not specific.
Brig Gen Dempsey who commands the US army’s 1st Armoured Division, the unit that controls Baghdad and the surrounding region,
said he believed a recent lull in attacks in Baghdad stemmed from an order to refrain from action during coalition offensives against guerrilla targets.
The fighting in Samarra, 60 miles north of the capital, represented a greater level of co-ordination in the Iraqi insurgency, though US forces said they had anticipated the attacks and blunted them.
Capt Deponai said he was surprised by the scale of the attack and the 30 to 40 assailants waiting near the banks where the money was being delivered.
"It’s hard to tell on the basis of one attack exactly what tactics may or may not be changing," General Peter Pace, vice-chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said at a press conference held jointly with US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
The US military said 54 Iraqis were killed, but Colonel Frederick Rudesheim at the US base in Samarra said 46 died. Iraqi residents and hospital officials disputed these figures. Five US soldiers were injured, the military said.
