Chasing the Ghosts

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Two and a half years since the U.S. invasion, nine months after the election of a government in Baghdad and weeks before millions of Iraqis will vote on a constitution that threatens to further split the country, this is the reality of the beleaguered U.S. mission in Iraq: a never-ending fight against a seemingly inexhaustible enemy emboldened by the U.S. presence, the measure of success as elusive as the insurgents themselves. For months, the intractability of the fighting and Iraq's momentum toward civil war have caused a gradual but still manageable erosion in public support for the Bush Administration's stick-it-out strategy, which depends on training Iraqis in sufficient numbers to take over combat duties and allow U.S. troops to begin pulling out. Senior U.S. officials say it could take a decade to quell the insurgency, with successful withdrawal years away. But the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and the massive price tag for rebuilding the Gulf Coast have ratcheted up the sense of urgency among lawmakers and some Administration officials about finding an exit strategy. In a TIME poll taken 10 days after the hurricane, 57% said they disapproved of President Bush's handling of the war; 61% said they supported cutting Iraq spending to pay for hurricane relief. Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita downplays those figures, asking, "What is it worth to avoid another 9/11?" But privately, Pentagon officials acknowledge that the reservoir of public faith in the war effort is running dangerously low. "The issue of American staying power is forefront in our minds," says a military officer. "Everything has costs."

With the public increasingly unwilling to pay those costs, the U.S. faces hard questions. Can political success still be salvaged from an unwinnable military fight after the series of failures (see following story) that have marked the U.S. enterprise in Iraq? How can the U.S. extract itself without compounding the damage done to U.S. interests in the region? After a month in the al-Qaeda-dominated Syrian border region, TIME spent 10 days on the front lines of the war, having lived with U.S. and Iraqi troops as they prepared for the battle of Tall 'Afar, one of al-Zarqawi's biggest strongholds and, intelligence officers say, a place where he was detected in recent weeks. Waiting for the Americans were hundreds of hardened local fighters, small bands of foreign zealots and, in the notorious Sarai quarter of the city, a labyrinth of medieval alleyways laced with booby traps and roadside bombs. Two weeks after the start of the offensive, the military claimed more than 200 insurgents killed. But field commanders and top intelligence officers acknowledge that the U.S. is no closer to subduing the insurgents and the threat they pose to Iraq's stability. Although dozens of al-Zarqawi's fighters may have died in Tall 'Afar, the U.S. and Iraqi forces were unable to prevent others from getting away. In its tempo, ferocity and politically compromised outcome, the story of Tall 'Afar stands as a parable of the dangers, dilemmas and frustrations that still haunt the U.S. in Iraq. Despite the temporary tactical gains made by the U.S.'s 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, the battle refreshes doubts about whether anything resembling victory in this war can still be achieved.

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