"Before the war, predictions by even the most skeptical Bush administration critics did not include scenarios of escalating violence this long after the invasion, or of the U.S. military issuing a news release such as the one it sent out Tuesday morning, headlined "Fighting Continues in Eastern Baghdad." In addition, several cities near Baghdad have slipped from U.S. control in recent months and have become "no-go zones" for U.S. troops.

"No one that I know of, to include the most pessimistic experts, predicted a full-scale insurgency would break out within a couple of months of the overthrow of the old regime," said Steven Metz, a guerrilla warfare expert at the Army War College. "

"Sadly, the 1,000th military death is but a bookmark on a longer and more painful road," said retired Army Lt. Col. Carlo D'Este, a historian specializing in World War II. As in the Vietnam War, he said, "there is no visible light at the end of the tunnel, nor has the Bush administration articulated a viable exit strategy, without which the war will continue indefinitely -- that is, years."

Arf