In Iraq, frontline patience wears thin

"In the back of your mind you wonder how much longer is this going to go on, how many more times am I going to have to come back over here," says 1st Lt. Michael McCasland of Spokane, Wash., who spent just two weeks with his newborn daughter before returning to Iraq. "There has to be a point when Iraqis take responsibility for their own country."

Compared with much of Iraq, the city of Mosul is relatively calm today, sidestepping the sectarian dueling that is roiling much of the country.

Still, two IEDs struck the battalion's armored eight-wheeled Strykers Sunday, though there were no casualties. In the city's eastern half alone, Lieutenant McCasland's battalion (one of four in the Stryker Brigade operating in Mosul) endures an average of 50 IED attacks each month, and a handful of car bombs.

The insurgents' attacks have grown less effective with time, but now they seem to be adapting, officers say. In recent weeks those attacks have become more sophisticated as some here worry a catastrophic attack could be imminent.

"The enemy has gotten very well- organized and very well-versed in what they're doing, as if they've gotten new leadership in the area," intelligence officer Capt. Mark Awad told a gathering of Iraqi Army and police officers in Mosul Saturday.

While US soldiers are practiced in the art of firepower, the sort of counterinsurgency campaign under way at the moment has demanded a far more nuanced approach to battle. Defeating the insurgency is as much about reaching ordinary Iraqis as it is about capturing terrorists.

"The fight is really for the people and their mind-set," says Lt. Col. Richard Greene of Germantown, Md., the battalion's executive officer.

Even as they're frustrated at the often-tense relationship with Iraqis, the soldiers here take solace in the swarms of children that come out to greet them wherever they go. Though the children are often after the Beanie Babies and candies that the soldiers dole out, for troops, their response offers much-needed reassurance.

"When we roll into a neighborhood, it's like a parade with all the young kids running out," says Clevenger. "I think we're definitely making a difference here."

But in the leafy front yard of a well-to-do Kurdish family, three women spew vitriol in the face of platoon leader 1st Lt. Raymond Maszarose of Vicksburg, Md. Last year, they say, US troops accidentally killed their father and two of their nephews.

"We hate the Americans," says one of the women, calling herself simply Om Omar. "They destroyed our country. They can't protect this country, can't provide electricity, why'd they come here? It's a nightmare."

The women say their father was caught in the crossfire during a firefight between US soldiers and insurgents. "How do you know it was the Americans that killed him?" Lieutenant Maszarose asks again and again. But it's no use. For these women, the blame lies squarely on US shoulders.

And they are not alone. A recent poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org of 1,150 Iraqis showed that nearly half of all Iraqis and nine out of 10 Sunni Arabs support attacks on US forces.

"We're up to over 2,300 US military deaths and it sucks that they feel like that," says Clevenger.

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