Iraq's Repairman

Petraeus also vividly remembers his worst day in Mosul. "We lost 17 men in one night, and that was hard. I often wonder how those division commanders in World War II handled the casualty numbers they had," he says, and just as quickly brightens. "But hey, that's 17 reasons to get that thing right." He's painfully aware that for all the smart soldiering, and the hard sacrifices, Mosul today is one of the most dangerous places in Iraq. Foreigners don't dare use the hotels there. Last Thursday, suicide bombers and attackers with AK-47s and RPGs killed 62 people in the city, and earlier in the week a dean at Mosul University and her husband were assassinated. The sort of foot patrols Petraeus delighted in taking around Mosul a year ago are no longer remotely feasible. "Any army of liberation has a certain half-life before it becomes an army of occupation," he says, and shrugs.

The game now is to get foreign soldiers out of Iraqi lives. "Completing these tasks allows us to reduce the size of our forces and helps us to go home," Petraeus says. But will Iraqi forces with far less training and weaponry be able to achieve what 138,000 Americans have not? In the 15 months of war in Iraq, nearly a thousand Coalition soldiers have been killed--more than died in all of America's wars since Vietnam put together. And fully a fourth of those perished in just the past three months, as the insurgency exploded, backed by popular outrage in Iraq over attacks on Fallujah and Najaf and revelations of torture and abuse in Abu Ghraib.

Even in the most optimistic scenario, the Iraqi military will number only half the current American force by the end of this year. And Iraq is a perfect place for asymmetric warfare. "Awash with weapons... AK-47 assault rifles in every home," says Petraeus, ticking off the challenges. "Open borders. Elements in neighboring countries who want to make trouble. Criminal element let out of jail by Saddam. The enemy gets a vote in this thing, too." He muses on that for a while. "There are limits to what you can do." An uncharacteristic moment of self-doubt? Perhaps, but it passes quickly. "There are limits, but actually, damn few." To accomplish his mission, he'll have to test every damn one.

WITH JOHN BARRY IN WASHINGTON AND TAMARA LIPPER TRAVELING WITH THE PRESIDENT

© 2004