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by Douglas Hamilton

DOHA, (Reuters)Digging in and mopping up are now playing a far bigger role than foreseen in the U.S. script for a blitzkrieg to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, stretching out the campaign into the rising desert heat of April.

Hopes that it might all be over after an intimidating display of precision-guided bombing have been dashed. Twelve days into the war, Baghdad shops are opening again. The invader is not yet at the gates.

It would take at least 100 km (60 miles) of front to totally encircle the capital, and the Anglo-American force does not yet have anything like enough troops for such a job. "They are too light. There is a huge need for more resources," said French defence analyst Francois Gere.

"I think they underestimated the role of the militias within the small cities and towns," said Defence Minister Robert Hill of Australia, the third member of the U.S.-led military campaign.

The Fedayeen Saddam militia was transformed from 1996 onwards from a rag-tag goon squad into a disciplined and well armed force of perhaps 100,000, according to an ex-CIA analyst.

Analysts said the United States and Britain have three divisions (up to 60,000 troops) in Iraq, one of which has been fighting fairly hard at the end of very long lines of communication.

"If you're going to crack three divisions of the Republican Guard you're going to need more than that," said William Hopkinson of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

U.S. troops strength has fuelled a feud in Washington over who is to blame for "going in too light", with hawkish Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the firing line.

Some troops have been told there will be a pause in land advances towards Baghdad, possibly for several weeks, because of overstretched supply lines and stiff Iraqi resistance.

"The pause is not a definitive sign that things are going badly," Hopkinson said. But it is "not going as well as Rumsfeld and the others had hoped it would go".

Double back to mop up

The U.S. 4th Infantry Division, the army's most modernised force, is on its way but may take two weeks or more to begin deploying into Iraq to strengthen stretched supply lines.

Some units have doubled back from their forward positions in central Iraq to root out resistance in urban centres they originally swept past, expecting Iraqis to welcome the invasion.

"This is a clear adjustment to the ground element of the war, as the Americans seek to cope with things they had not fully taken into account," said Gere. The extent of Iraqi resistance is much stronger than expected, he added.

British defence analyst Phillip Mitchell said the reported pause was simply media hype.

"The air campaign is continuing, there's been a lot of activity around Nassiriya and Najaf. There's probably been a readjustment in planning to take into account the problems on the main supply route, but a pause as such, no," he said.

"The new troops won't be ready for another two to three weeks and the troops on the ground are certainly not going to wait that long (to advance)," Mitchell predicted. Mopping up is riskier and takes time. Hundreds of U.S. Marines scoured block-by-block through suburban Nassiriya on Monday to secure a city they had already driven past. Pilots are focusing on support for troops forced to put the dash for Baghdad on hold to tackle Iraqi fighters in their rear.

But air support is hampered by the presence of civilians and raises the risk of "friendly fire". British soldiers blamed a "cowboy" U.S. pilot for strafing their convoy, killing one man.

Efforts to decimate Serb forces in Kosovo were disappointing for U.S. pilots. Only a handful of tanks were destroyed, and Serbs retreated in strength with relatively few casualties.

No plan B

"The easiest solution hasn't worked but that doesn't mean the plan was a failure," he said Michael Codner of Britain's Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies. "It's worth trying a high-risk high-payoff strategy provided you've got a plan B to fall back on.

The problem is if you have no plan B. That's what we saw in Kosovo when there was no armed invasion force in place right at the beginning," Codner said. Iraq's Republican Guard is now taking a pounding from the air in trenches south of Baghdad.

Their earthworks offer some protection from conventional bombs, but the United States has heavy air-burst explosives that could have a shattering effect. So far, however, the United States is not using all its capabilities. It does not want to wreck Iraq's infrastructure.

No one has yet suggested it may be necessary to destroy Baghdad in order to save it, in the inimitable language of the 1965-75 Vietnam war. To do so would put Iraqi "hearts and minds" forever beyond Washington's reach.

"The unexpected thing has been the lack of support for the invasion," Hopkinson said.

"An awful lot was posited on the idea of cheering maidens throwing flowers at the invading troops, and that's not happened, even in the south."

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