Some feel frustrated and discouraged as death and injury tolls climb and American support wanes

TIKRIT, July 4, 2005 -- At Saddam Hussein's vast palace complex that is now the U.S. Forward Operating Base Danger in Tikrit, Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Taluto contemplates the war American soldiers under his command are now waging.

"The enemy is intrinsic," said Taluto, who heads the 42nd Infantry Division and the Army units attached to it in Iraq. "They're infiltrating the Iraqi security forces as we speak. I don't know how big (the insurgency) is, but I think their capability is constantly replenished."

In more optimistic days, after the 2003 invasion, the Bush administration believed that American troops would be helping to rebuild schools, hospitals and water systems, and maintaining security while Iraqis set about establishing a new, democratic government. Then the troops could go home, with the thanks of the Iraqi people.

Instead, Iraqis now hold the soldiers responsible for the condition in which their country finds itself.

In conversations and interviews over the past month, U.S. soldiers under the command of the 42nd Infantry Division in Samarra and Tikrit came across as frustrated, sometimes disheartened, though still largely unbowed.

Some of them say that Iraqis will never accept the American presence. Others do not believe democracy can work here. The declining support in the United States for the war provokes anger. The mounting U.S. death and injury toll is depressing.

"I'm tired of going to my buddies' funerals," said Spc. Joshua Forman of Sammamish, Wash., referring to memorial services the military holds for soldiers killed in Iraq.