The New York Times re-examined -- in a more positive light than in previous days -- the performance of US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the war on Iraq.

In an op-ed dwelling on the bitterness raging against Rumsfeld -- after the Secretary and top military brass lashed out at US media for demoralizing troops with their negative comments -- the Times said there was an "amazing amount of rancor for a war that is less than two weeks old."

While stressing Rumsfeld's "reasonable" argument that "the military needs to be quicker and leaner, with less reliance on heavy armored divisions," the daily noted: "The big failure has been in political assessment, and the expectation that southern Iraqis would welcome the American troops and offer minimal resistance."

"Under normal circumstances the military could afford to wait while airstrikes softened the defenses around Baghdad, but it must now feel some urgency about getting the war over with and ending the reports about water shortages and civilian war casualties, which are on display every day in newspapers in Europea and the Middle East," the Times said.

The Times conceded that while it may initially have "urged the Bush administration not to invade Iraq without broad international support, ... now that the war has begun, we pray for a quick and successful conclusion."

It also inquired as to exactly who was behind the US war strategy in Iraq.

Former US Central Command chief retired general Joseph Hoar complained in another opinion piece in the Times that, unlike in the 1991 Gulf War when General Stormin' Norman Schwartzkopf let his requirements be known, "Today nobody outside a small circle of players knows exactly who developed the plan for this invasion or what the prevailing views were."

"The fact is that more gorund troops are needed. And more ground troops are on the way. The relevant questions are these: Will this second infusion be sufficient, and why weren't these troops there when the war started?" Hoar asked.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post found Powell's visit to Turkey Wednesday, "an opportunity to begin repairing US relations with an essential Muslim ally," despite Congress's potential boycot of a request from the administration for one billion dollars for Ankara.

Loss of goodwill in Washington after the Turkish parliament failed to give US troops access to open a northern front for the Iraq war coincides with "diplomatic and economic reverses that have placed Turkey's strategic orientiation toward the West at risk," the Post said.

But despite Ankara's inexperienced new leadership and US failure to engage diplomatically ahead of military moves, "Turkey, unlike France, has no wish to form a bloc opposing the United States; and both Turkey and the United States have much to gain by restoring a close working relationship," the Post said.

The Wall Street Journal pondered how the United States lost Turkey's loyalty, asking why Ankara walked away from 30 billion dollars offered by Washington in grants and loan guarantees.

"All those years in big money and bad IMF (International Monetary Fund) advice, for starters. Yes, there were lots of other factors, not least Turkey's desire to join a European Union in which France had just threatened to blackball any applicant that backed the US," said the Journal.

"Thanks to the IMF's stress on high-tax fiscal 'discipline' above economic growth and political realities, millions of Turks are out of work and short on hope" the Journal notes in a commentary.

"How we got to this point is a cautionary tale of some importance as the US maneuvers for friends in the post-Sept. 11 world."

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