Things are heating up. Three consecutive days topping out at 122 degrees.

Heating up in the work world as well as an increasing sense of urgency grips the US forces-Iraq staff in the face of significant looming changes.

It is summer, the season of turnover for military personnel. This is not new, given the difficulties the services would face if they were always trying to move families in the midst of any school year. What is new here in Iraq is the calculus of drawdown, the sad reality that forces you to say goodbye to a lot more people than you will be welcoming. The ranks continue to thin but nobody seems to know how to make the workload do the same. That is hard enough under normal conditions, but now we have this urgency thing going on.

GEN Odierno will soon be leaving as the commanding general of USF-I; his departure will coincide with closing out of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the beginning of Operation New Dawn. It marks the point at which the number of service members, which peaked around 170,000, must reach no more than 50,000. It officially ends planned combat operations for US troops, who will complete their transition to a train, advise, and assist role with the Iraqi security forces. Unless forced to defend themselves.

New Dawn also heralds a rather unique phase of operations for the US military -- the transition to civil authority. And there is the rub. There remains no true civil authority to accept the transition. More than four months after the national elections, the political elites remain mired in self-serving power posturing; the change so desperately hoped for by the Iraqi people now likened to a mirage induced by the baking sun across the dusty desert landscape. Ramadan looms, scarcely more than three weeks away, and failure to form the government by then will ensure that the light of New Dawn will shine on empty government seats.

And thus the urgency in the American camps. What else can possibly be done to establish conditions for continued success? Where can we help with security, economic development, or improvement of basic services? Failure is not an option. More than 4,400 American service members lost their lives in Iraq and that sacrifice weighs heavily on those now compelled to earn it. #1 on that list is the CG, GEN Odierno. He commanded an Army division, an Army Corps, and now all US forces in Iraq, spending all but about one year in country since the invasion in 2003. His son lost an arm here. Failure is not an option.

And so we sweat it out, literally and figuratively. It's going to be a bit busy over the next six weeks as we work this transition. I'd like to think things would then settle down, but I'm more inclined to believe a quote I recently heard, attributed to one of the USF-I Deputy Commanding Generals and referencing the end of combat operations: "The hard part is over. Now comes the harder part."