"Time is on our side," Myers said Thursday in an interview with Fox News."

"Baghdad becomes less and less important, you have a regime inside that can't communicate to the people. All they can do is try to hunker down and survive" as the rest of the country passes into coalition hands, Myers said.

The Pentagon is betting on the eventual participation of the Shiite half of the population in the capital Baghdad, persecuted by the regime of Saddam Hussein.

"Given Shias are half the population ... you probably have people ready to help out, you have to be patient," Myers said.

He warned: "It will not be the sort of thing that will have perhaps the immediacy" some would like.

But if pockets of resistance emerge, it will be necessary to use precision guided bombs and infantry, he said.

"Any notion you need some carpet bombing in Baghdad -- that's not going to happen, and I don't think the reality on the ground will dictate any extraordinary measures."

In fact, the situation General Tommy Franks -- commander in charge of Operation Iraqi Freedom -- will find in Baghdad "has yet to be determined," Myers said. "He has several plans to deal with it."

"But there are unknowns, and General Franks will have to do what he has done: adapt and flex to the knees."

Only hours earlier, Myers had dismissed the idea of a classic siege of the Iraqi capital. "... This notion of a siege and so forth, I think, is not the right mental picture" to describe how the Battle of Baghad may unfold, he said.

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