After the most formal, direct talks between the United States and Iran in decades, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker today said the two sides found "broad agreement" in their declared policies and principles about the war in Iraq. That is, both sides say they want a stable, democratic Iraq. But stated policies and principles don't add up to much amid conflict that is becoming more and more a proxy war between the United States and Iraq's most powerful neighbor. Crocker, who gave a 15-minute news conference after the four hours of talks here today, said the United States told Tehran to stop supporting Iraqi militias with weapons, training and money. He said the Iranians denied the allegations.

The Iranians proposed setting up a trilateral security group consisting of the United States, Iran and Iraq to work on Iraqi security issues. Crocker says he told them the purpose of the meeting was not to discuss further meetings. Instead, the purpose was "to lay out concrete concerns, as we did, and our expectation that action would be taken on them." And, for good measure, he said he told the Iranians that before Washington would have another meeting, "we're going to wait and see, not what is said next, but what happens next on the ground, whether we start to see some indications of a change in Iranian behavior."

So much for agreement. The Associated Press reported later that the Iranian envoy, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, claimed another meeting would be held within a month. He said Iran offered to help train Iraqi security forces. Crocker did note that the Iranians had criticized the U.S. effort to train the Iraqi troops, which Crocker rebuffed by pointing out the "billions" of dollars already spent on the U.S. training effort.

Petraeus meets the troops south of Baghdad. Photo by Larry Kaplow

Soccer leagues are plentiful, and you see men in fluorescent uniform tops scrambling for the ball across bare dirt fields. You're close enough to see a few families still strolling around one of the capital's dilapidated amusement parks. The roads are busy, though not clogged, with motorists heading home at dinnertime. You can see green sewage covering some streets and trash and damaged buildings are apparent but the city--a great metropolis of millions of people and resplendent turquoise mosque domes--looks haggard but alive.

An aide says such flights are a frequent pick-me-up for the general at the end of a day, a chance to remind himself and others of the daily life that goes on despite war. It's a war that Petraeus is remaking according to his doctrine of counterinsurgency, and in the hours before the scenic trip back, he visited two dusty, fairly primitive Army bases where the theory is meeting reality. Close up, it's a more mixed and complicated picture of a hard fight, making some progress but facing shortfalls and the all-too-usual threats.

The body search on the Euphrates. Photo: AP

Iraqi police in the central region of Hilla were telling reporters that they had found the corpse, shot in the head and chest, of a Western-looking man in a partial U.S. military uniform. That was in the Euphrates River near the city of Musayyib, roughly 30 miles south of the site where the three men were abducted after an attack on their two-vehicle patrol May 12. They were parked on a road doing surveillance, according to the military, about half a mile from the river.

As of late Wednesday in Iraq, there was no confirmation from the military about whether the body had been identified. The military is careful not to name any soldiers killed until their relatives are notified. Sometimes the process can take days, as spouses and parents, possibly living in different locations, are found by soldiers specially trained in breaking the tragic news face to face. In the meantime, entire bases can shut down soldiers' Internet and phone access to prevent gossip from reaching the home front.

After the soldiers were abducted, officers in their unit told reporters that special teams had been assigned from their home base in Fort Drum, N.Y., to keep the families informed of progress in the huge, 4,000-soldier search under way.

The Army has identified the three missing soldiers as Pfc. Joseph J. Anzack Jr. of Torrance, Calif., Specialist Alex R. Jimenez, of Lawrence, Mass., and Private Byron W. Fouty, of Waterford, Mich.

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Blair met with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for about an hour Saturday morning before the conference. He said there were real signs of progress in the country and the British government would continue to support the Iraqi people even after he leaves office. But he was less composed when asked about the mortar attacks earlier in the day. "There are mortar attacks and terrorist attacks happening every day. That's the reality," he said. "The question is, what are we going to do in the face of those attacks? Those attacks, by a minority of people, want to destroy the progress here. And the answer is we don't give in to them." And he couldn't resist a dig at the media. "The very purpose of the attacks, the suicide bombs, the mortars aimed in here so you will carry nothing but that on your news and won't actually talk about the progress that's happening here."

The exchange got more heated when a BBC reporter said the claims of progress sound like "fantasy" to Iraqis. "Well, you say that," Blair shot back. "Why don't you actually listen to what the person who is the president of Iraq says about Iraq? With the greatest respect to you, you're no more qualified than me to talk. But he's qualified and he's qualified [pointing to Talabani and Maliki]. Because they're actually Iraqis who are elected to govern."