When President Bush first visited Iraq on Thanksgiving Day in 2003, he stayed 2 1/ ₂ hours and never left Baghdad's airport. Nine hundred twenty-nine days later, his second trip lasted twice as long, and he made it as far as the heavily fortified Green Zone that houses the U.S. Embassy.

Several other things had changed as well. Iraq has a new, complete government. And its most feared man, the terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi, is dead. The danger level, however, is clearly no different. Bush, dubbing himself a "high-value target," staged a complex head fake by slipping away from a much-hyped Camp David strategy session to offer a dramatic vote of confidence in Iraq's new leaders.

With the Bush administration trying to harness the rare burst of good news, the visit could have been a celebratory one. Instead, it had an oddly subdued tone, with most of it held behind closed doors. One explanation, of course, is that Bush's host, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, learned of the visit only after Bush had reached the Green Zone.

But Bush, leery of creating unrealistic expectations in either Baghdad or Washington, was also trying to redefine his standard for success. "The objective in Iraq and Baghdad is to create a sense of order so people feel more confident about their government and going about their lives," he said. "I don't think the Iraqi government can guarantee a complete absence of violence." Indeed, the real concern is that any lull in violence will be temporary. "My big fear is that the trends outside the Green Zone just dwarf whatever Maliki tries to do," says a top U.S. official. "This could be bigger than anyone right now."

Still, Bush's trip did set the stage for a week of political theater. On Capitol Hill, Democrats and Republicans traded barbs in orchestrated debates aimed at getting members on the record about the U.S. effort in Iraq. Republicans sounded a renewed confidence about the politically unpopular mission, while Democrats argued among themselves over whether to demand a timetable for withdrawal.

Iraq's cost, meanwhile, is mounting. A new congressional spending bill brings the overall tab to $320 billion so far. And the U.S. death toll in Iraq hit 2,500.