Six U.S. soldiers died in roadside bombings and a shooting, the military said Sunday, as lawmakers rushed to persuade Sunni Arabs to accept federalism provisions in the draft constitution that is due in one day.

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[T]he U.S. military said three soldiers were killed and one other wounded in a roadside bombing late Saturday near Tuz Khormato, 95 miles north of Baghdad.

One soldier on a patrol was killed Sunday and three others wounded in a blast east of Rutbah, 250 miles west of Baghdad, the military said. In another roadside bombing, one soldier was killed Saturday and another wounded in western Baghdad.

On Friday a U.S. commander said the number of roadside bomb attacks against American convoys in Iraq had doubled in the past year to about 30 per week. Dozens of bombings, usually detonated by remote control, target U.S. and Iraqi patrols each day.

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

Administration officials still emphasize how much they have achieved despite the chaos that followed the invasion and the escalating insurgency. "Iraqis are taking control of their country, building a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself. And we're helping Iraqis succeed," President Bush said yesterday in his radio address.

Posted by: Jonathan Singer / 10:47 AM | Basie! Home