Some lawmakers worried that US forces in Iraq may be overextended, with too few troops asked to perform too many tasks; others suggested there might not have been insufficient prewar planning by the Pentagon, or that Washington might have underestimated the determination of remnant Iraqi troops.

"While our military did remarkable work in defeating two terrorist regimes in short order, events in Afghanistan and Iraq make it clear that we have a ways to go in both countries," said Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

"The terrorist elements have been defeated, but they haven't been destroyed," he said.

Hunter worried that US forces are stretched thin, with some troops now in Iraq for nearly one year, and with no end in sight to US military commitments.

"Because we have long-term commitments in Europe and Asia and long-term requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan and don't know how long the global war on terror will last -- or for that matter, whether it will ever end -- we face a future security environment loaded with uncertainty," he said.

"We face uncertain risks associated with the possibility of having to react to a future contingency while the bulk of our forces are already committed elsewhere," Hunter added.

Missouri Representative Ike Skelton, ranking Democrat on the committee, said the unsettling number of US casualites calls for a review of how the US occupation of Iraq is being conducted.

"More Americans have been killed in Iraq since April the 14th than have died in year we've occupied Afghanistan.

"This morning -- like most recent mornings -- we awoke to the news of another servicemember killed in Iraq," he said. "That makes 51 deaths since May the 1st -- in other words, one dead American each day.

"I've been arguing for careful postwar planning to secure Iraq," he said. "The realities to date do not indicate that the planning that occurred was sufficient."

Since May 1, 14 US troops have been killed by hostile fire, the latest a soldier who was shot in a drive-by shooting at a Baghdad filling station. Another was wounded in the attack.

"Given the challenges we're facing, we need our allies and their troops more than ever. We must not let our failure to agree before the war become an argument for a failure to achieve peace now," he said.

"They (US forces) need help, in my opinion," Skelton said. "They need a lot of help."

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