U.S. officials have made little, if any, progress with their persistent calls for Iraqi officials to take steps toward reconciliation between Shiites and Sunnis.
Key administration officials, most prominently Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Vice President Dick Cheney, have visited Iraq to push for passage of an oil-revenue sharing law, provincial elections and reform of rules barring members of the former ruling Baath Party from government jobs.
But the Iraqi government is bogged down by fighting among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties. It is unclear whether the oil law, the one piece of benchmark legislation still given hopes for passage before September, will reach a vote any time soon.
The number of death-squad killings in the capital, one sign of sectarian divisions, is down from earlier this year. But the number remains roughly at the level seen after the 2006 bombing of Samarra's Golden Mosque, which served as a catalyst for the extreme sectarian violence.
In Baghdad, the number of bodies found dumped in the streets dropped to 540 last month from 830 in January. Some American officers say those numbers could rise again. And others say that the decline may simply represent the depressing reality that most Baghdad neighborhoods are now segregated, meaning there are fewer people left for death squads to kill.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil Jr., the commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, said that American troops at the end of June controlled about 42% of the city's neighborhoods, up from 19% in April.
But to many Iraqis, that is little comfort.
"The Americans do not make me feel safe," said Amin Sadiq, a 30-year-old Shiite worker in the Ghadeer neighborhood of east Baghdad. "When you hear the speeches of the top U.S. military leaders, you think that everything is ideal and perfect and Iraq will be better. But when you see how the U.S. soldiers behave, I really feel I should not trust the leaders."
The American military has helped bring a tense truce in some areas, but has not re-integrated once-mixed neighborhoods.
The western Baghdad neighborhood of Ghazaliya, once a prosperous mixed middle-class area, was riven by sectarian violence in 2006. It is now divided between Shiites in the northern end and Sunnis in the south, with the U.S. military stuck in the middle, trying to keep the peace.
"Last year, things were bad. This year is worse than before," said a man in his 50s who identified himself as Qais Qaisi.
