Baghdad, Iraq ? As Iraqis passed their first deadline on the road to writing a new constitution without seeking a delay in the process, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq laid out a new strategy Monday for uniting Iraqis around the constitution, isolating the insurgency and drawing down American troops.

Zalmay Khalilzad, freshly arrived from his job as ambassador to his native Afghanistan, outlined a two-pronged strategy that would combine political persuasion with targeted military force in the Sunni-dominated central and western regions of Iraq, where the insurgency thrives.

“Our strategy is to work through political means to mobilize the people of central and western Iraq to support the new democratic order,” he said.

“The Iraqi government and the United States will then use highly targeted military force to capture or eliminate the foreign terrorists and the hard-core Baathists who irreconcilably oppose the new order.”

Khalilzad did not say what he meant by “highly targeted military force,” but one of the key demands of Sunni leaders has been for Americans to stop conducting the large-scale military offensives that target entire towns or villages and frequently increase local support for the insurgency.

As the strategy is implemented, coalition forces will withdraw from Iraqi cities and hand over control to Iraqi units, Khalilzad said.

An unidentified Iraqi breaks down at the sight of the body of his bound and decapitated relative at the Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad, Iraq. Iraqi police on Monday discovered the tortured bodies of 12 men in an open field of garbage in the Um Al-Maalif area of south Baghdad. Relatives of the victims say that insurgents dressed as police came Sunday and took the 12 men. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, on Monday offered a strategy for uniting Iraqis and isolating the insurgency.

“After this transfer occurs in more and more areas, there will be a smaller need for coalition forces, and elements of the multinational forces will leave Iraq.”

Khalilzad also did not detail how the United States plans to reach out to Sunnis living in areas where the insurgents hold sway, but his comments coincide with a growing realization among military commanders and U.S. diplomats that military means alone will not be enough to defeat the insurgency and that more needs to be done to convince ordinary Sunnis that they have a stake in the new Iraq.

Central to the new strategy, he said, is the achievement of what he called “a national compact” that would unite Iraq’s divided communities around the broad principles of their new constitution, which could still falter if the Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni factions fail to reach an agreement by Aug. 15.

Khalilzad has been promoting the gathering of Iraqi leaders to secure a broad consensus on the sticking points, even if disagreements remain on the details.

“On key issues there will have to be broad agreement,” he said. “It’s possible that on some issues the details of implementation could be referred to the new assembly.”

If there is no agreement by Aug. 15, the national assembly would be dissolved and elections would be held for a new legislature to start the constitution-writing process again – something U.S. officials are anxious to avoid because it would prolong for at least another year the political uncertainty that is fueling the insurgency and deepening sectarian tensions.

Legislators have come under intense U.S. pressure to stick to the timetable, which U.S. officials hope will enable American troops to start heading home next year. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld paid a surprise visit to Baghdad last week to urge Iraqi leaders not to delay.

Khalilzad denied, however, that there was “any pressure by the United States on anyone” and Hammoudi, the committee chairman, also insisted that Iraqis decided independently not to extend the deadline. “It is purely an Iraqi desire to complete it on time,” he said.