Begin again

Iraq | An embattled president takes the battle—and its warriors—to a new level | Mindy Belz

The 82nd Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team headed to Iraq long before a somewhat nervous- and sober-looking President Bush stepped to a lectern in the White House library to announce an increase of more than 20,000 in the number of troops serving there. Most members of the unit were enjoying Christmas with their families near Fort Bragg, N.C., when they received word late last month that the holiday was over.

The fabled 3,500-strong "Falcon Brigade" is always on a high state of alert, said spokesman Maj. Tom Earnhardt, and "can have the first elements out the door" within 18 hours. So by early this month the servicemen were in Kuwait, and this week they will become the first contingent in five brigades that are entering Iraq as part of what the president called a new "well-defined mission" to revive what he acknowledged has become a failing offensive. "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me. It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq," the president said in a nationally televised speech Jan. 10.