“And there’s another nagging question: Are the activities of the coalition armed forces contributing to the attacks? In one sense, Sanchez concedes, they surely are, for U.S. units have deliberately been taking the fight to those bands of Iraqis opposed to the occupation. ‘When you go on the offensive,’ he says, ‘you are going to increase the numbers of confrontations and engagements that you have.’ More worrying is an alternative explanation: that the coalition’s heavy-handed actions are acting as a recruiting sergeant for disaffected Iraqis. Sadly, that may be the case. A U.S. official says Paul Bremer, head of the Office of the Coalition Provisional Authority, has ordered a get-tough policy to assure Iraqis that the U.S. is serious about taking on Saddam’s Baath Party. It’s how that has been done that is problematic.” Time