Danger Around Every Corner.

The author reports on how U.S. troops are coping with the continuing violence in Iraq. President Bush says the media are overplaying the violence in Iraq. Yet the past two weeks' casualties would make anyone take notice. While American casualties fluctuate month to month, they're spiking again. Bush is right, of course, to say the killings aren't the only news from Iraq. The U.S. has been making headway in restoring the country to normality. The fact is, the realities coexist: this is a country working to move on amid a shooting war that will not end. Some days it feels as if Iraqis opposing the U.S. presence are throwing everything they can at the young soldiers and the locals helping them rebuild the country. Despite the best efforts of field commanders, the U.S.-led coalition is still struggling to contain the threat. And the latest spasm of attacks has only deepened unease that the chaos of the early postwar days may be evolving into a more deliberate resistance, as scattershot hostility hardens into something more organized and sophisticated. Some people contend that the 338 American soldiers who have died in Iraq since the war began amount to a hearteningly low toll out of the 130,000-strong U.S. force. But others, including many of the troops, are dismayed that 199 of those deaths have come since Bush's May 1 declaration that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended." U.S. officials in Iraq say their troops are coming under attack an average of 20 times a day. The danger zones are also expanding. Whatever their exact affiliation and degree of organization, all the militants are pursuing the same objective: to force the U.S. out of Iraq. An unscientific but arresting survey last week in Stars and Stripes, reported that half the troops serving in Iraq believe their unit's morale is low.