U.S. expects new peril on Baath date

The central command chief said troops face 'a guerrilla-type war situation.'
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. forces were on the lookout for new trouble today on a major anniversary of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, after a day that saw the killings of another American soldier and an Iraqi mayor who had cooperated with coalition forces.
Rumors have spread quickly among the Iraqi public that Saddam would make some sort of appearance on the anniversary of the 1968 Baathist revolution that brought his political party to power.
Nothing yet
The military said early today it had no word of fresh attacks on U.S. troops. Saddam and his two sons, Odai and Qusai, have not been seen since the capital fell in April, though Saddam has been heard on several audio tapes calling for attacks on U.S. troops in recent weeks.
The 1968 coup led Saddam to power 11 years later. Iraq's new Governing Council, in its first act Sunday, swept aside the July 17 celebration and five other dates that the Baath Party used to mark as official holidays.
U.S. soldiers have come under increasingly ferocious and frequent attack by suspected Saddam loyalists in recent weeks -- reaching an average of 12 attacks a day. More than 30 U.S. soldiers have been killed in hostile action since President Bush declared an end to major hostilities May 1.
The Pentagon said that as of Monday, 144 U.S. personnel had been killed in combat since the start of the Iraq war. At least two U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraqi attacks since then, bringing the total just short of the 147 killed in combat during the 1991 Gulf War.
In Washington, the new chief of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that coalition forces are facing a "classical guerrilla-type war situation" against opponents ranging from members of the Baath Party to non-Iraqi fighters from terrorist groups.
But "they're not driving us out of anywhere," he said.
The U.S. military said one surface-to-air missile was fired on a C-130 transport Wednesday as it landed at Baghdad International Airport. It was only the second known missile attack on a plane using the airport since Baghdad fell to U.S. forces April 9, said Spc. Giovani Lorente. He said he did not know where the plane came from or whether it was carrying passengers, cargo or both.
The American soldier was killed and three others were injured in a rocket-propelled grenade attack west of Baghdad near the Abu Ghraib prison, a U.S. military spokesman said. In a separate attack, an 8-year-old Iraqi child died when an assailant threw a grenade into a U.S. military vehicle guarding a bank in west Baghdad.
Mohammed Nayil al-Jurayfi, who had cooperated with U.S. forces as the new mayor of Hadithah, was killed in an ambush, police Capt. Khudhier Mohammed said. One of the mayor's sons also was killed in the attack, 150 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Abizaid's use of the term guerrilla warfare was a striking departure for a top military leader. As recently as last week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials refused to use the term, saying attacks on U.S. forces were too sporadic and disorganized to qualify as a guerrilla campaign.
Abizaid credited attackers with improved organization, tactics and financing as he suggested American soldiers may face deployments of a length seldom seen since the Vietnam War.
However, he pledged that soldiers in the Army's longest-serving unit in Iraq, the 3rd Infantry Division, would be on their way home by the end of September. Other U.S. troops will be given a firm homecoming date.
"It's very, very important to all of us to make sure that our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines know when they're coming home," Abizaid said at a Pentagon news conference.
He suggested that comments by a few soldiers in an interview with ABC-TV -- including one who said he wanted to ask Rumsfeld to resign -- simply show the frustration of young people who are ready to go home.
"Every now and then we've got to look at our young people and understand why they said what they said, and then do something about it," Abizaid said.
He declined to speculate on whether those soldiers could face punishment but added: "None of us that wear this uniform are free to say anything disparaging about the secretary of defense, or the president of the United States."
Before they go home, those troops undoubtedly will face more attacks from former members of Saddam's Baath Party and from terrorist groups who want to derail Iraq's transition to democracy, Abizaid said. He spoke on a day when attackers killed the pro-American mayor of a northwestern Iraqi town and a U.S. soldier in Baghdad.
Though Rumsfeld has avoided characterizing the situation as "guerrilla warfare," Abizaid said Wednesday it was the proper term.
"It's low-intensity conflict in our doctrinal terms, but it's war however you describe it," said Abizaid, who took over last week as head of U.S. Central Command.
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