"Both the overall strategy and the specific military component were described by senior administration, Pentagon and military officials in interviews over the last two weeks in response to requests from The New York Times for an answer to the question, "Is there a plan for Iraq?"
...
The new strategy was written this summer and laid down in a series of classified directives to the new American Embassy in Baghdad and to the United States military headquarters there. The instructions are an acknowledgment that the insurgency had seized the initiative in Sunni strongholds north and west of Baghdad and in the southern city of Najaf, considered holy by Shiites."
...
'"We're working on them by population size, by importance to the election," said one senior administration official, who added that the ultimate objective was to make sure that the main Sunni Muslim cities were able to take part in free elections. "That's where the bad security situations are, and that's where we really need to make some major political and economic changes in the next several months if we're going to have a successful nationwide election," he said.'
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/08/politics/08strategy.html?ei=5006&en=1af532182900f600&ex=1097812800&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position=
[Linked from Drudge]