Perspective: A war on rewind

Then or now? A cloud of smoke and dust envelopes a soldier seconds after he fires an AT4 rocket launcher during a firefight in Baghdad, in a picture either from June 2004 or June 2007.

In Iraq , after four years and three months of war, the echoes have begun to echo themselves.

American troops are taking Baghdad 's streets back from insurgents. The prime minister has a plan for national reconciliation. To the south, in the "triangle of death," two U.S. soldiers are missing, captives in enemy hands.

Those were the headlines a year ago. Now they're being heard again in the newscasts of today, like some grim rewinding of a movie tragedy, of a story that never ends.

At the White House last June, back from a secretive trip to Baghdad, an upbeat President Bush told reporters assembled in the Rose Garden, "I sense something different happening in Iraq."

It's June again and those roses are once more in bloom. But in Baghdad the scene looks only bleaker.

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NOTE: The answer to the 'then or now?' question in the photo caption is: last Saturday, June 16, 2007.