“I said after listening to this — and I didn’t realize that the very next day we were going to have our 4,000th combat casualty — I said, ‘I’m sitting here listening to you describe how leadership will not come together to secure Iraq while we have had 4,000 Americans killed, 30,000 wounded and $5 billion (spent) and multiples of Iraqis have been killed and wounded.

“I’m sitting here listening to this knowing that if somehow you all can’t get together or refuse to get together, hundreds of thousands of additional Iraqis and thousands of additional Americans will be killed or wounded and you tell me that you can’t get together because you didn’t receive proper notice and there are two lives that might be lost?” he challenged.

According to Marshall, al-Hashemi responded, “You come into my house to insult me?”

Marshall said he replied, “I don’t come to insult. I come to let you know that the patience of America is wearing thin, that we want to help Iraqis secure Iraq, but Iraqis must ultimately do it. It’s a leadership issue.”

Marshall repeatedly told al-Hashemi, he said, that time is working against them.

“But I actually just thought about getting up and walking out, because I can’t deliver too strong a message to these folks that they need to get their act together,” he said.

However, Marshall didn’t get up and walk out, he said, because he was with a delegation and he wasn’t certain that every one of the delegation would walk out with him.

The delegation then met with General Petraeus for nearly two hours for a status report.

“Undeniable progress had been made as far as security is concerned. We’re still losing soldiers and having soldiers horribly wounded, but the numbers are way, way down,” he said.

Reconciliation in neighborhoods is evident, he said. There is less turmoil, and tens of thousands of people who have fled Iraq are coming back, he said.

A joint U.S./Iraq operation in Mosul will soon be under way, he said, like the one that cleared al-Qaeda from Baghdad, he said.

“That’s the last al-Qaeda stronghold,” Marshall said.

The congressman noted that the Iraqi government is taking full lead in recent fighting in Basra trying to stop Shia militia with the U.S. in a mere backup role, he said.

“On the one hand I’m just delighted. On the other hand, I’ve got a lump in my throat, because we really don’t need the Iraqi security forces to fail. That would be a step backwards here. There needs to be continual improvement,” he said.

Long-term trends appear to indicate the war in Iraq is heading in the right direction, he said. The real worry to Marshall is that unless the political side develops quickly, the security side might take over.