Violence Leaves Iraqis in Despair

Senor said Salim's assassination would not affect the U.S. vow to hand over limited political power on June 30. "American credibility certainly would be injured in the region if we made this promise that we've been quite vocal about and then we broke it or postponed it," he said.

The security threat has increased pressure on U.S. officials to take new steps to corral a potent insurgency in the Sunni Triangle north and west of the capital and in the Shiite-populated south.

U.S. officials have described the insurgency as a mix of groups, including former members of Hussein's now-outlawed Baath Party, Shiite extremists and foreign fighters.

While ideologically disparate, the groups are united by a common American enemy. Iraqi and U.S. officials agree that the chief goal of the resistance is to destabilize Iraq, either for political gain or to force a U.S. retreat.

The Arab Resistance Group-al-Rashid Brigades, a largely unknown organization, asserted responsibility for Salim's assassination and posted on a Web site the names of two men it said carried out the bombing.

The names -- Ali Jubouri and Mohammed Hassan Samarrai -- are common in Sunni regions, and there was no way to verify the claims. But it appeared to be the first time individuals had been praised for a suicide attack in Iraq, evoking the celebration of martyrdom practiced by Palestinian militant groups.

Interior Minister Samir Shakir Mahmoud Sumaidy, who oversees the Iraqi police force, said a team of investigators, assisted by FBI agents, had begun looking into the bombing.

Sumaidy implored Iraqis with information about the attack to come forward. "It's clear that the intelligence we have is not adequate," he acknowledged.

In an interview after the funeral service, the Governing Council's new president, Ghazi Yawar, said Iraq had no choice but to rely on the U.S. military for protection. "We look forward to the day when Iraqi forces will be able to take up the question of security in their own hands," he said. "But we must be realists, because we still need the assistance of the coalition forces."

The dominant emotion in the council, however, was a sense of helplessness.

"Security is problem number one," Othman, the Kurdish council member, said in an interview. "Any Iraqi will say, 'Please give us security.' Even food is secondary. He wants to go out. He wants his children to go to school without problems. We have to change this situation before anything else."

Othman said Iraq's police and security services needed adequate funds, facilities and equipment to do their jobs. Other than that, he said, the U.S. authorities should leave recruitment, training, intelligence-gathering and decision-making on internal security to Iraqis.

Othman said U.S. soldiers should not be policing Iraqi cities, towns and villages and were ill-equipped to do the job effectively. "They capture people at random, put them in Abu Ghraib and then set them free," he said, referring to the U.S.-run prison west of Baghdad. "It's a big failure, their security policy -- they should confess to it."

Hamid Kifaie, a Governing Council spokesman, said many members believed that the Americans have bungled security and that Iraq's long-term stability is in jeopardy. Kifaie, who was in exile in Britain for 23 years during the rule of Hussein and his Baath Party, said he was not optimistic.

"Baathists are still about. They are working freely, and we have not managed to have a base for the new regime," he said. "What we need is more financial support for the police and intelligence services."

Kifaie conceded that the council had not offered specific alternatives to U.S. control over Iraqi security, but maintained that the members were never given a say. "The Governing Council would have put forward a plan, but the council was sidelined, so what's the point?" he said.

Special correspondent Khalid Saffar contributed to this report.