Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the senior American ground commander in Iraq, said in a brief interview that he never believed that a midsummer timetable for establishing security in Baghdad was realistic. “This was always going to be conditions-driven,” he said, noting that he always had expected it would take until fall to establish security across much of the city.

There’s the Iraqi clock, there’s the conditions-driven Coalition clock in country, and there’s the New York Times driven clock back home — where it’s already September.