Patience emerges as critical weapon in Iraq war

By Bernd Debusmann, Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Wearied by steady losses and few tangible signs of progress in the war in Iraq, the U.S. public is running out of one resource America's enemies appear to have in abundance -- patience.

Impatience with the war, now in its fifth year, was reflected in the elections that drove President George W. Bush's Republicans out of power in Congress in November. Since then, Bush named a new secretary of defence and new military commander in Iraq charged with implementing a new strategy.

But despite repeated appeals from Bush for patience while more troops arrive in Iraq to carry out the new strategy, opinion polls show that pessimism runs deep and most Americans favour a deadline for the withdrawal of troops.

"The ... question now is whether the U.S. has the patience to at least play out its current strategy and accept the fact that any hope of success must be measured in years of U.S. actions, not months," said Anthony Cordesman, an expert of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Under Bush's plan, a "surge" of 28,000 additional troops is being sent to provide security for Baghdad, using the methods laid down in a new blueprint for war against insurgents.

When the U.S. Army and Marine Corps began working on the counterinsurgency manual, the first in two decades, its initial draft said success required "extreme patience". The final version, issued in December, was less categorical: it prescribed "substantial" patience.

Judging from Islamic fundamentalist Web sites, there is no shortage of patience on the side of America's enemies. The insurgents appear confident they can draw on a seemingly endless supply of new recruits.

"Although ... we have killed some huge number of enemy combatants (perhaps 20,000+), without fail the armed insurgents, militia and Al Qaeda in Iraq apparently regenerate