'Improving Security Situation'

Crocker visited a small photography shop in Ramadi run by Amer Latoofi Hussein Al-Bayati.

The walls of his tiny store still have bullet holes from years of fighting. He pointed to a picture of a young man hanging behind his counter and told the ambassador the insurgents "killed my son because he shook hands with an American." Al-Bayati wants compensation for his son's death.

Crocker, speaking in Arabic, answered Al-Bayati by introducing him to the provincial governor who took down the man's information and promised to speed up his compensation.

As the ambassador's nervous staff tried to get him to move on to his next meeting, a local police officer collared the top American diplomat in Iraq and complained that he hadn't received a paycheck in three months.

He told the ambassador that he had borrowed money and now had no credit left.

They were small but telling complaints for a man who is scheduled to deliver to Congress -- along with Gen. David Patraeus -- an Iraq status report in September.

Crocker downplayed the significance of the report.

"I don't think September can be a defining moment," he said. "I don't think there is a date on the calendar, whether it's in September or any other time in which you can say, 'This is the defining moment. It's all coming together, or it's all falling apart.' It's an enormously complex situation."

Anbar, and much of Iraq, is fractured in ways large and small. It is hoped that the change in security in Anbar Province will help speed political progress locally, and eventually nationally.

Anbar's provincial council, whose members Crocker met, expressed great reservations about Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government's willingness to meet its demands of more local autonomy and increased funding for rebuilding a shattered infrastructure.

When asked if he trusted the central government Ma'amoon Al-Awani, Anbar's governor looked thoughtful, then said "about 50-50." He then let out an enormous laugh.