As a Quick Victory Grows Less Likely, Doubts Are Quietly Voiced
After 10 days of watching smart bombs, sandstorms and stiff resistance from the Iraqi regime, a capital that usually embraces the president and his strategy in wartime is beginning to show fissures.

Few have openly split with the president, or the decisions made so far. But one does not have to scratch deep to hear the doubts.

There are the Central Intelligence Agency analysts, quietly complaining that their warnings that Saddam Hussein's government might not crack like peanut brittle were dismissed. There are ex-generals on nightly television, expressing unease about a plan that relied more on speed than on numbers, and that seemed overly dependent on welcoming cheers from the Iraqis. There are field commanders like Lt. Gen. William Wallace, whose public complaints of an enemy that was "different from the one we'd war-gamed against" set off alarm bells and denials at Central Command.

There are the terse comments of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who, in an interview on Friday, declined to say whether the Iraq war planners were in danger of violating the famed "Powell doctrine" — the use of overwhelming force. He assured two visitors to his office that he was certain the Pentagon would, in time, "bring decisive force to bear" — and then changed the subject.

And there are Democrats who chafe about the war's progress but will not say so publicly. Acutely aware that their Senate leader, Tom Daschle, walked into a hornet's nest two weeks ago when he suggested that the war itself was the inevitable result of failed diplomacy, they measure every word.

Finally, there is a White House that is scrounging for evidence that it warned the nation all along that this could be a long slog, even in the face of predictions by Vice President Dick Cheney and others that, in all likelihood, the war would be quick and that "the streets in Basra and Baghdad are sure to erupt in joy."

Mr. Cheney may yet prove to be right, the White House says, but 10 days into the war there is a recognition that the enthusiasm of the hawks got out of control.

"There were very high expectations about the conduct of the war and enormous confidence in the military forces; we've all had drummed into us how superior they are," said Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic head of the House International Relations Committee.

"Then you run into difficulties," he said. "And that creates a reaction all over town."

On Friday morning, Democratic critics of the White House were circulating e-mail containing the most optimistic prewar quotes from prominent hawks.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/30/international/worldspecial/30DISS.html