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By James Morrison

'VERY LONG BOOK'

Just as Americans are losing patience with the 8-year-old war in Afghanistan, two former U.S. ambassadors to Iraq are predicting that conflict still has a long way to go before the Washington can really declare "mission accomplished."

"The Iraq story post-2003. This is still chapter one," Ambassador Ryan Crocker told an audience at the James A. Baker III Institute at Houston's Rice University.

"We probably have 37 chapters ahead of us. This is a very long book," the Houston Chronicle quoted him as saying.

Mr. Crocker, a retired career ambassador, served as the U.S. envoy in Iraq from 2007 to February 2009.

One of his predecessors, John Negroponte, who shared the stage with him, said that any U.S. president should expect that rebuilding a nation will always take longer than expected. The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein, who was long suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction in violation of U.N. resolutions.

"If we, as a nation, decide to get involved in these types of conflicts, we've got to understand that they take more time and involve more resources than we ever anticipate to begin with," said Mr. Negroponte, ambassador in Iraq from 2004 to 2005.

Mr. Crocker agreed.

"These processes take a long time, and no amount of good ideas generated from Washington can be dispatched by FedEx and laid down in a template and made to work," he said.

Mr. Crocker also noted that terrorists in Iraq appear to be changing their tactics from attacking civilians to targeting government installations.