Less than six months after starting the Iraq war, the US administration is battling to shore up confidence in its ability to rebuild the country and its military strategy.

Though polls indicate Americans still support the campaign to bring down Saddam Hussein, daily attacks on US targets, and their supporters are starting to eat into backing for President George W Bush's Iraq policy.

Opposition Democrat leaders are starting to talk of "quagmire".

Anti-American slogans shouted by crowds in Iraq after the latest car bomb, that killed 85 people in the holy city of Najaf, will no doubt unnerve the US public even more.

Bush insisted again last week that the US will stay the course in Iraq though he admitted it will be hard and sacrifices will have to be made.

The administration has said there are no plans to add to the 140 000 US troops in Iraq but the failure to get other countries to help the stabilisation effort has only added to US problems.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage expressed strong frustration at Japan's intention to postpone sending troops to Iraq during recent talks with a top Japanese envoy in Washington, Japan's Kyodo News agency reported.

The much-watched US opinion polls indicate the public would be willing to hand over control of Iraq to the United Nations.

Sixty-nine per cent of respondents in a CBS News survey released Friday said the United Nations should take the lead in rebuilding Iraq.

Just 25% said the US should remain in charge.

Forty-seven per cent of those surveyed said events in Iraq are slipping out of US control compared with 42% who believed the US remains firmly in control.

John Kerry, one of the nine Democrat presidential contenders, called yesterday for greater efforts to persuade other countries to send troops to Iraq.

"We are in danger, if we don't do what we need to do in the next months, of having an enormous quagmire, of having a very serious challenge," he told CBS television.

Kerry said UN help must be sought. "We must internationalise this effort, we have to reduce the sense of American occupation, we have to take the target off of American troops".

He also called for increasing spending on Iraq "by whatever number of billions of dollars it takes to win".

John McCain, an influential Republican senator, wrote in the Washington Post that "our military force levels are obviously inadequate" in Iraq.

But he opposed handing over authority to the United Nations.

Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, has floated the idea of having a UN force with a US general in charge. But even that causes nerves within the administration, experts said.

General John Abizaid, the new head of the US Central Command, whose responsibility includes Iraq and Afghanistan, said a greater international participation was needed to end Iraqi fears that they were living under a US occupation.

But he has also reinforced the need for better intelligence on the threat from followers of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the foreign fighters that US officials say have entered the country.

Not all experts agree extra numbers are needed.

Anthony Cordesman, a military specialist with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said: "The key to winning in this offensive is not numbers, but intelligence, skilled cadres of expert troops, area of language specialists, mixed with constant civic action and political warfare to win hearts and minds". – Sapa-AFP.