Bush, Advisers Ready to Map Iraq Strategy

President Bush and his top foreign advisers explored new strategies Wednesday for speeding up the transfer of political power in Iraq amid deep frustration with the work of the American-picked Iraqi Governing Council.

Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney sat down with L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Baghdad, at a National Security Council meeting also attended by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Rumsfeld and Bush were to meet separately with Bremer after the National Security Council session.

One option under consideration: naming a new interim Iraqi leader with authority to govern the country until a constitution can be written and elections held, an administration official said. That would be patterned after the model of Afghanistan.

The urgency of the talks was underscored by a new top-secret intelligence report warning that Iraqis are losing faith in U.S.-led occupation forces, a development that is increasing support for the resistance, officials said. Two senior U.S. officials said it describes a troubling picture of the political and security situation in Iraq.

Rushing back to Washington, Bremer abruptly canceled a planned meeting in Baghdad with the visiting Polish prime minister. In advance of his meeting with Bush, Bremer met on Tuesday with Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice.

The talks came at a time when Iraqi insurgents have stepped up attacks – resulting in the bloodiest week for American soldiers since the end of major combat operations – and as U.S. and Iraqi leaders struggle over how to draft a new constitution, a key step in handing over power to the Iraqis.

With a re-election battle ahead, Bush faces a rising casualty toll in Iraq and criticism that he lacks a strategy for postwar Iraq. As of Monday, the U.S. death toll was 394.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said more U.S. troops are needed in Iraq. He said the situation there is deteriorating and “we need more boots on the ground.”

“This situation has got to be reversed … if this trend continues we are in serious difficulty,” he said on CBS “The Early Show.”

On Wednesday, a truck bomb shook the headquarters of the Italian Carabinieri police in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah on Wednesday, killing several people, Carabinieri officials said in Rome.

The Arabic language television station Al-Jazeera said several Iraqis also were killed. It was the first such attack in this relatively quiet Shiite Muslim city since the beginning of the U.S.-led occupation.

Also on Wednesday, U.S. troops opened fire accidently on a car carrying a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, the Iraqi administration said. The council member escaped injury but the driver was hurt.

U.S. officials have had growing concerns about the performance of the governing council, a senior administration official said, particularly the lack of progress toward a Dec. 15 deadline to set a timetable for writing a new constitution and holding democratic elections.

Bremer has expressed frustration to members of Congress that council officials are not working hard enough.

One idea being considered is the creation of an interim Iraqi leader with authority to govern until a new constitution is in place and elections are held, the senior administration official said, on condition of anonymity. In Afghanistan, the government of President Hamid Karzai was installed by the U.S.-led coalition that ousted the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001. Elections are planned next June.

The talks also focused on security issues, said another Bush administration official who also spoke on condition of anonymity. Some critics have proposed the recall of Iraq’s army, disbanded shortly after the war. Pentagon officials and Bremer’s aides have called that unworkable.

Even as they expressed disappointment in the council’s work, administration officials said Bush was not about to disband it.

“The notion that we are about to throw the council to the wolves is exaggerated,” said a third senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But there is a need to put some energy into the political transition. It is true they are not as together as we had hoped.”

Many members of the U.S.-picked governing council have complained, in turn, that they cannot move quickly and have no real power because Bremer rules the country. The council has not even decided how to choose delegates to draft the constitution, U.S. officials noted in frustration.

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EDITORS: AP White House Correspondent Terence Hunt and Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report.