As Obama talks peace, many Iraqis are unsure

The morning after President Obama spoke of bringing the war in Iraq to "a responsible end," insurgents planted their black flag on Tuesday at a checkpoint they overran by killing the five policemen who staffed it. It was the second time in a week. The rest of the day, the police blotter looked like this: Three mortars crashed in Baghdad neighborhoods, where five roadside bombs were detonated and two cars were booby-trapped. Two other mortars fell in the Green Zone, still the citadel of power in a barricaded capital and still a target of insurgents who seem bent on proving they were never defeated. By dusk, a car bomb tore through Kut, an eastern town long spared strife. "Nothing unusual," said Murtadha Mohammed, a 20-year-old baker, as he shoveled rolls into bags a short walk from one of the bombs. "We've been raised on this." The word "disconnect" never quite captures the gulf in perceptions between two countries whose fate remains reluctantly intertwined, however exhausted each seems of the other. Moments have come and gone: transitional governments, declarations of sovereignty, the signing of agreements. Obama's announcement Monday was another.