Via McClatchy:

Standing in a small room in the Iraqi home they'd raided an hour earlier, a dozen soldiers from the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division were trading jokes when 1st Sgt. Troy Moore, Company A's senior enlisted man, shouted out.

"We're bringing democracy to Iraq," he called, with obvious sarcasm, as a reporter entered the room. Then Moore began loudly humming the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Within seconds the rest of the troops had joined in, filling the small, barren home in the middle of Iraq with the patriotic chorus of a Civil War-era ballad.

Although the soldiers who since spring have walked and ridden through this volatile area mixed with Sunni and Shiite Muslims have seen some signs of progress, they still face the daily threat of roadside bombs, an unreliable Iraqi police force, the limitations of depending on Iraqis for tips and the ever-elusive enemy.

"Even though we've out-stayed our welcome, in the big picture of whether we've helped or not, I know we have," said Sgt. Christofer Kitto, a 23-year-old sniper from Altamont, N.Y. "But now it's just in a state of quagmire. The U.S. time here has come and gone." Read more...

It seems the Sunnis have out-stayed their welcome in Baghdad as well. Shiites have killed or driven a majority of Sunni from the Baghdad area -- read more in this Newsweek/MSNBC article, "Baghdad's New Owners." On a related note, Nir Rosen of the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program takes on Pollack, O'Hanlon, Petraeus and Bush on the matter of what's really happening on the ground in Iraq. There is no central government and never has been. The militias have been ruling the roost since 2003.