Abdul Haziz Hakim has critical words on America's effort in Iraq:

BAGHDAD -- The leader of Iraq's most powerful political party has called on the United States to let Iraqi fighters take a more aggressive role against insurgents, saying his country will only be able to defeat the insurgency when the United States lets Iraqis get tough.

"The more freedom given to Iraqis, the more chance for further progress there would be, particularly in fighting terror," said Abdul Aziz Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Shiite Muslim religious party that leads the transitional government and whose armed wing is the most feared of Iraq's many factional forces.

The problem is that Hakim gives little indication of what his recommendations for a change in U.S. tactics would be, or how he would do things differently if in charge:

Hakim gave few details of what getting tough would entail, other than making clear it would require more weapons, with more firepower, than the United States is currently supplying. He also urged the United States to take a tougher stand against countries harboring insurgents and their supporters, and called for faster trials of insurgent suspects.

And Hakim's criticism is even less credible in light of this:

Hakim oversees the party's armed wing, formerly known as the Badr Brigade. Its fighters are widely feared for what even many Iraqi Shiites say are habits of torture and other ruthless tactics learned from Iranian intelligence and security forces. Now officially converted into a private security detail and political group, the renamed Badr Organization is widely alleged to control many command-level and the rank-and-file officers in the Interior Ministry -- police, commandos, intelligence agencies and other branches.

Hakim's armed wing is not a likely model for the United States to take a "tougher" approach in Iraq.