The U.S. military is flooding Iraq with 12,000 more troops in time for the January election, but military commanders say they should not be expected to be the solution to Iraq's problems.

And the problems are myriad: The Sunni insurgency is increasingly violent and frequently targets Iraqi government forces; unemployment remains high; basic services are still struggling throughout much of the country; and the occupation is viewed as an irritant in the least case and an outrage in many places. Insurgent attacks on Friday alone claimed 30 Iraqis, half of whom were police in a Baghdad police station.

For the state, success in counterinsurgency will never come from military action alone, a U.S. military commander in Iraq told UPI this week. Success only comes if the government addresses the source of the dissatisfaction in a manner that demonstrates consistency of purpose and intent -- i.e., no short term window dressings or Band-Aids.

The Pentagon announced Wednesday it would increase the troop presence in Iraq from 138,000 to about 150,000 over the next month in preparation for Iraq's election of a national assembly, a time when much violence is expected. The troop increase is accomplished by extending the tours of about 10,400 soldiers and Marines, and sending in about 1,500 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division. The additional troops will remain in Iraq until March or April. This puts the U.S. troop presence at its highest level ever.

But troops cannot provide security, the commander in Iraq said, because they do not address Iraq's root issues.

People fight against established government systems because they are dissatisfied with their current lot in life and feel that the government in power is either inattentive to their needs, actively abusing its governmental authority, or has centralized power ... (toward) its own selfish ends, he said.

Until those issues are identified and addressed in Iraq, there will not be peace or stability.

Those, moreover, are not the simple bread and butter issues the reconstruction is meant to handle - sewage and water and electricity, and health care and jobs and education.

In the Maslow hierarchy of community needs, security is at the top of the list, the commander said, referring to the work of mid-century psychologist Abraham Maslow. A government that cannot provide security or the perception of security for itself or its citizens is by definition ineffective.

There is no sense of common fate in that part of the world, a second senior commander said. From the Khyber Pass to Iraq, the first thing you do when you settle down is build a wall around your house. Your security is up to you.

In Iraq, security and reconstruction animate and feed each other. The pace and success or lack thereof of reconstruction fuels discontent, which raises sympathy with the insurgency. Insurgent attacks further slow the pace of reconstruction, ultimately diminishing the government's legitimacy.

Complicating matters is the fact that there are two perceived governmental authorities in Iraq saddled with the provision of security and basic services: the American-led occupying force and the government that was more or less handpicked by the United States in Baghdad. Both are looked to provide security and reconstruction, and both contribute to the insurgent cause by their mere existence -- a foreign occupying power and a perceived puppet government that is believed to be unresponsive or even hostile to the Sunni minority.

The attacks do not have to be particularly effective to be successful. Rebellious fighters may be killed in dramatically larger numbers by the superior American force - more than 1,500 fighters were killed in Fallujah, compared with fewer than 100 Americans and Iraqi government militia -- but still win.

The insurgent has to merely create a perception of insecurity to weaken the political power of the government, the commander said.

Even if the government is successful in meeting the basic needs of the people, that still may not translate into political satisfaction, the commander pointed out. There are intangible issues of legitimacy that go beyond the provision of security and services.

That is one reason the U.S. government is so committed to holding the Jan. 30 election in Iraq. It could be a major step toward establishing a legitimate government in the eyes of Iraq, which was promised a democracy from the United States before the first bomb was dropped.

The only long-term possibility for Baghdad to win the loyalty of the Iraqis and convincing them of its legitimacy -- given the growing antipathy for the occupation - is for Iraqi government troops to provide security for all Iraqis, commanders told UPI.

The American role is limited less by troop numbers -- which are already being strained under the burden of the counter-insurgency and 18-molnth-old occupation -- than by the necessity of convincing Iraqis to throw their hats in with Baghdad.

We need to keep them in check and buy them time. ... We are a windbreak, he said. We're a small piece of it, a senior commander said.

The (insurgency) has yet to win one tactical fight, he said, but pointed out the same could be said for the Vietcong in Vietnam. That outgunned insurgent group -- along with the Soviet- and Chinese-supported North Vietnamese Army -- ultimately succeeded in expelling the United States and ultimately forcing the surrender of the South Vietnamese government the United States propped up.