"Catastrophic success"

"The war's worse, the insurgency's worse," said a senior U.S. Embassy official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to talk candidly. "This is not going to be a short fight. Nobody should think it is."

The assessment reflected a new willingness among senior Iraqi and American officials to acknowledge that large tracts of the country remain beyond the control of their combined forces. More than three months ago, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi asserted during a visit to Washington that 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces were stable and largely peaceful. Now, in interviews, he routinely refers to the situation as "our catastrophe."

[...]

In far northern Nineveh province, where, as in Anbar, lack of security forced cancellation of voter registration last month, U.S. commanders this week doubled the force struggling to control Mosul. Officials, including Allawi, have hinted that an offensive on Iraq's third largest city is in the offing.

"We're going to do better in Mosul," one Western diplomat said.

WaPo article

I'm not sure what that means, but I bet it's not good.

Despite the continuing heavy toll, U.S. officials insisted that the security situation in Iraq was improving.

"Frankly, I don't think the security situation is deteriorating," a senior State Department official in Baghdad told Pentagon reporters in a videoconference briefing Tuesday. "I think the security situation is actually a little better than it was, say, six weeks ago."

  LA Times article