The man, Zackery Bowen, a tall man in his mid 20s with long blond hair, claimed in the note to have killed his girlfriend, Adrian "Addie" Hall, on Oct. 5, according to police. Hall was also in her mid 20s.

In the five-page note, Bowen claimed he strangled Hall in the bathtub, then dismembered her body before taking it in pieces to the kitchen, police said. An autopsy conducted today shows that Hall was in fact manually strangled, police said. It also appears that Hall's body was cut up after she died, police said.

"He appeared to clean up the bathroom a lot after he did it," one officer said.

Police found the victim's head burned beyond recognition in a pot on top of the stove, and her legs and feet in the same condition in pans inside the oven, police said.

Bowen was from Los Angeles, but apparently had lived in the New Orleans area for quite a while, police said. Friends said he served in the military in Iraq and Afghanistan and displayed both pride and bitterness over that experience.

Detectives said they were compiling a detailed profile of Bowen to submit as soon as possible to the FBI's VICAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program) center. VICAP is a nationwide data information center designed to collect acts of violence that might be serial in nature and recognized by other jurisdictions with access to VICAP as similar to a crime that they investigated.

Shortly after Oct. 1, the couple had rented an apartment together at 826 N. Rampart Street above a voodoo shop, said their landlord, Leo Watermeier, who recently ran a campaign for mayor.

The couple seemed happy at first, he said, though that would soon break down.

"He may have in retrospect seemed a little troubled," Watermeier said in an interview early Wednesday morning, shortly after he led investigators to the gruesome scene inside the apartment.

Last Sunday, several days after he claimed in his suicide note to have killed her, Bowen appeared "all jolly, talking about the trip he was going to take," said Lisa Perilloux, a regular at Buffa's bar, where Bowen worked a weekly bartending gig.

Bowen had told several co-workers and friends there he planned to take a "much-needed vacation" to Cozumel or some other island resort, said Donovan Kalabaza, a fellow bartender and friend.

"Just think, tomorrow night, you'll be in paradise," Kalabaza recalled telling him.

Sunday afternoon, Bowen came in briefly in the afternoon, drinking with two other guys.

"He was a great mood, best mood I've ever seen him in."

Bowen jumped to his death two nights later.

Though they appeared happy when they rented the Rampart Street apartment - telling Watermeier they had fallen in love on the night Hurricane Katrina struck and Hall gave Bowen shelter - they soon had a bitter falling out, Watermeier said. After the storm, the couple lived a vagabond existence in the shattered city, becoming feature fodder for the swarm of national media eager to profile post-flood diehards.

But on Oct. 5, during a dispute over which of their names would appear on the lease, Hall told Watermeier she intended to kick Bowen out of the apartment, after finding out that he had cheated on her, Watermeier said.

Bowen did not take the news well, Watermeier said.

"He said, 'Did you just let her sign a lease alone? Because I'm screwed. I'm totally messed up now. She's trying to kick me out of our apartment," Watermeier said.

Hall admitted she was trying to throw Bowen out, he said.

"I caught him cheating on me, and I am kicking him out of this apartment," she told Watermeier.

Watermeier told the couple to work through their differences and get back to him. He never saw Hall again, and assumed they'd worked it out.

Police came to Watermeier's door about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, shortly after Bowen committed suicide, asking if he knew a tall man with long blonde hair, and if he had a connection with the apartment at 826 N. Rampart St.

He took them to the apartment, he said, where they warned him he might not want to enter. Investigators told Watermeier what they found, however: charred body parts strewn about the kitchen.

Hall was also not from New Orleans, Watermeier said, but both she and Bowen seemed "hard core" about the city and proud that they had stayed here through Katrina.

Bowen's suicide was first discovered Tuesday when his body was spotted below by someone in an upper floor lounge. It was soon determined that Bowen had jumped from an outside terrace near a swimming pool on an upper floor to the roof of the Chartres Street garage on the second floor, police said.

A surveillance camera showed him walking several times to the edge of a ledge on the upper floor, then retreating, then returning again, until he finally plunged, police said.

Police found the five-page suicide note in his pocket, which not only led him to the scene of the murder, but included information on an out-of-state person who should be contacted after he was found, police said.

As the news began to filter through the French Quarter and Faubourg Marigny - where the couple worked, drank and at times argued - friends and co-workers relayed details of their personalities, their demons, and the tumultuous last weeks in their lives. Some offered portraits of a loving couple that sometimes fought; others painted a darker portrait of a dysfunctional couple at perpetual war.

Perilloux said she never heard Bowen speak anything but ill of Hall.

"He was getting rid of her," she said, meaning he was trying to break up with her. "He used to complain about her to me. It was revolving door."

She also relayed an recent incident where Hall screamed expletives at Bowen through the front door of Buffa's, in front of a crowd of regulars. Associates of Bowen described him as a strapping, smooth-talking man who flirted with other women, often making Hall often jealous. Karen Lott, owner of Buffa's bar on Esplanade, where Hall worked one bartending shift a week, said she had hired him as "eye candy for the ladies" after meeting him when he made deliveries to her from Matassa's.

"The customers loved him. Everyone loved him," she said, still reeling from the news of his suicide and her gruesome murder.

They knew Hall well at Buffa's, too, where she often sat at the other end of the bar, often staring admiringly at Bowen as he either served drinks or ordered his own, almost always a Miller High Life and a shot of Jameson Irish Whiskey. When loud music drowned out their conversation, she would pass him notes, often to tell him she loved him, said Donovan Kalabaza, 34, a fellow bartender at Buffa's and friend of both Hall and Bowen.

Ed Parrish, co-owner of the Spotted Cat bar on Frenchman Street, where Hall worked up until a month ago, said he could tell something had gone awry in her life. She started missing work, then coming back to apologize and seek to save her job.

"I had a feeling something was seriously wrong," he said.

She had worked there for about a year, he said, before becoming unreliable. After not showing up for shifts three times, Parrish never saw her again.

Eura Jones, who cleans the bar in the mornings, had not heard about the gruesome killings until told by a reporter early Wednesday. She described Hall a "real friendly" and "a real pretty girl" who was smitten with Bowen.

"She loved that guy. She really loved him," Jones said, though she added the couple squabbled often.

Bush was asked in an ABC News interview late Wednesday if he agreed with a New York Times columnist's comparison of the strife in Iraq with the Tet Offensive, which is considered a key turning point in the US war in Vietnam.

"He could be right," Bush said. "There's certainly a stepped-up level of violence."

Bush said insurgents were trying "to inflict enough damage that we'd leave."

"First of all, Al-Qaeda is still very active in Iraq. They are dangerous. They are lethal. They are trying to not only kill American troops, but they're trying to foment sectarian violence," he said.

"They believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort and will cause (the) government to withdraw," Bush said.

The Tet Offensive, a campaign launched by the North Vietnamese in early 1968, was considered a military defeat for them, but the scope of the assault shocked Americans and helped turn US public opinion against the war.

Many Americans concluded that the war was unwinnable or victory too costly.

The White House later sought to put the comparison in context.

"The full context was that the comparison was about the propaganda waged in the Tet Offensive ... and the president was reiterating something he's said before -- that the enemy is trying to shake our will," Dana Perino, a Bush spokeswoman, said in a statement.

"They know that we're a caring and compassionate people and that we're deeply affected by gross violence," she said.

"The president also believes the American people understand the importance of beating our enemy who is determined to kill innocent freedom-loving people."

The comments came amid a steep spike in US deaths in Iraq, including 10 killed in a single day, on Wednesday.

The US military announced two more US soldier deaths early Thursday, bringing the total number of American fatalities in Iraq this month to 69.

The US administration said the surge in US casualties would not lead to a reassessment of the US strategy there.

"The strategy is to win," spokesman Tony Snow said in the southern state of North Carolina Wednesday. "As everybody says, correctly, we've got to win. And that comes at a cost."

"The president understands not only the difficulty of it, but he grieves for the people who have served and served with valor," said Snow, who told reporters that US forces "do believe in the mission."

Also on Thursday, a suicide truck bomber slammed into an Iraqi police station in the northern city of Mosul, killing 10 and wounding 14, police said. Nine of the dead were civilians.

The attacks came amid a spectacular surge in insurgent and sectarian violence around Iraq, which has claimed hundreds of lives since the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan just over three weeks ago.

In the television interview, the US leader expressed support for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki but warned that his patience is not infinite.

"In my judgment, Maliki has got what it takes to lead a unity government," Bush said.

"I'm patient. I'm not patient forever. And I'm not patient with dawdling. But I recognize the degree of difficulty of the task, and therefore, say to the American people, we won't cut and run," he said.

Bush ruled out a complete troop withdrawal as long as he is president, through January 2009.

However, a high-powered panel named by the US Congress to assess policy options in Iraq is weighing recommendations that could deal a blow to Bush's "stay-the-course" policy in Iraq.

A source associated with the Iraq Study Group confirmed media reports that options under consideration include a phased withdrawal of US soldiers from Iraq and an opening of diplomatic channels with Iran and Syria.

Both steps would represent a major break with the president's policies.

The 10-member panel of bipartisan heavyweights will deliver its report sometime after the November 7 mid-term elections, according to its leader, respected former secretary of state James Baker.

Bush said insurgents are trying "to inflict enough damage that we'd leave".

"First of all, al-Qaeda is still very active in Iraq. They are dangerous. They are lethal. They are trying to not only kill American troops, but they're trying to foment sectarian violence," he said.

"They believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort and will cause (the) government to withdraw," Bush said.

The White House later sought to put the comparison in context.

"The full context was that the comparison was about the propaganda waged in the Tet offensive ... and the president was reiterating something he's said before - that the enemy is trying to shake our will," Dana Perino, a Bush spokeswoman, said in a statement.

"They know that we're a caring and compassionate people and that we're deeply affected by gross violence," she said.

"The president also believes the American people understand the importance of beating our enemy who is determined to kill innocent freedom-loving people."

In the television interview, the US leader also expressed support for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki but warned that his patience is not infinite.

"In my judgment, Maliki has got what it takes to lead a unity government," Bush said.

"I'm patient. (But) I'm not patient forever. And I'm not patient with dawdling. But I recognise the degree of difficulty of the task, and therefore, say to the American people, we won't cut and run," he said.

That was implicitly rejected by the White House spokesman Tony Snow, who said the administration would not "subcontract" management of the war to outside advisers. But two high-profile Republican senators separately called for a change of course.

"We clearly need a new strategy," said Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a possible 2008 presidential candidate.

John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Iraq was "drifting sideways" and that if there was no improvement within two or three months, then policy would have to change.

That deadline coincides with the expected publication of the conclusions of Mr Baker's Iraq Study Group around the end of the year.

Support for the war is at its lowest ebb and top Republicans warned that the present state of affairs could not continue.

With the carnage on the ground mounting daily, and American military losses approaching 2,800, a new CNN poll found 64 per cent of the public believing the war was a mistake - more than at any time since the invasion in March 2003.

Mr Bush's approval rating is close to all-time lows, three weeks before mid-term elections at which the Republicans face the loss of one or both Houses of Congress.

Senior Labour figures in Britain are hoping a shift of opinion in the highest reaches of the US administration could signal a turning point to force Mr Blair to revise his own approach to Iraq where Allied forces have failed to establish the rule of law, in spite of the promises that followed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Last week, Mr Blair was urged by the chief of Britain's armed forces, General Sir Richard Dannatt to scale down his ambitions for Iraq. Warning that the Army could be broken if it was forced to stay in the country, Sir Richard said: "The original intention was that we put in place a liberal democracy that was an exemplar for the region, was pro-West and might have a beneficial effect on the balance within the Middle East... I think we should aim for a lower ambition."

Sir Richard said the presence of British troops in Iraq was exacerbating the security situation. On Monday night, the Home Secretary, John Reid also broke ranks by admitting for the first time at a private meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party that foreign policy was contributing to the radicalisation of young Muslims in Britain.

Yesterday, at his first Downing Street press conference since he announced that he will be gone within a year, Mr Blair resisted the calls for a change of strategy. He appeared to contradict Mr Reid, describing such arguments as absurd.

"You can't end up in a situation where you say, when we are on the side of ordinary, decent Muslims in Iraq or Afghanistan who want their own democratic government, when we are there at the behest of those governments with a full UNresolution, that we, when we are protecting those against people who are driving car bombs into markets and mosques and so on, that we somehow are causing their extremism.

"It's absurd and you won't defeat this extremism until you take that argument head on. And the real problem we've got is it has got to be taken head on in the Muslim community as well."

Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic believe there is an endgame being played out for Mr Blair and Mr Bush and a policy shift is growing nearer. Labour MPs said privately last night that Mr Blair may be the last one standing by the President.

Meanwhile, his most likely replacement - Gordon Brown - who admitted last month that mistakes had been made in Iraq, is left watching anxiously as more soldiers' lives are lost in Iraq.

How the big wheels in the Bush administration have turned full circle

The CIA Man

"Iraq is now what Afghanistan was in the late-1970s and throughout the 80s into the 90s, and that's an insurgent magnet, if you will, a mujahedin magnet, only much, much worse."

Michael Scheuer, Former Head of the CIA's Bin Laden Unit

The Neo-Con

"The US objective in Iraq has failed... Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000. And the administration has, now, to cope with failure."

William Buckley, Conservative Editor of The National Review

The General

"The commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions - or bury the results."

Retired Marine Lt Gen Gregory Newbold

The Administration Man

"We didn't have enough troops on the ground. We didn't impose our will. And as a result, an insurgency got started and... got out of control."

Colin Powell, Former Joint Chief of Staff and US Secretary of State

The Adviser

"There'll probably be some things in our report that the administration might not like... I personally believe in talking to your enemies. Neither the Syrians nor the Iranians want a chaotic Iraq."

"I am not Taliban! We are not Taliban!" Gulab Shah shouted by the rubble of the ruined houses in Ashogho.

Kandahar provincial Gov. Asadullah Khalid said it appeared no Taliban fighters were in the village at the time of the airstrikes, which left giant pieces of mud packed with straw scattered along Ashogho's narrow lane.

Bibi Farida, a six-year-old whose red hair was matted with dirt, fidgeted and bit down on her scarf as she remembered the assault. Her voice was barely a whisper. "I cried. I just cried."

The 2am (local time) raid yesterday in the Zhari district of Kandahar province was less than a mile from the scene of September's Operation Medusa, one of the most ferocious battles between Western forces and insurgents since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.

Nato's International Security Assistance Force said in a statement that yesterday's operation in Kandahar was believed to have caused several civilian casualties. The alliance said the operation was meant to detain people involved in roadside bomb attacks in Panjwayi district, which borders Zhari. Nato said it regretted any civilian casualties.

Khalid, who travelled yesterday to Ashogho, about 15 miles west of Kandahar city, said nine people were killed, including women and children, and 11 wounded. Residents said 13 were killed, including four women, and 15 wounded. The governor stuck with his figures when contacted late yesterday by The Associated Press.

Since late 2001, there have been numerous incidents of civilians killed in military operations against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, although US-led coalition and Nato forces say they go to extreme lengths to avoid civilian casualties.

The international troops accuse insurgents of blending in with local populations while attacking foreign and Afghan soldiers. Many other civilians have been killed in Taliban attacks, including scores in recent suicide bombings.

President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly demanded that Nato and US-led coalition forces take more care when conducting military operations in residential areas to avoid civilian casualties, which undermine his government's already weak standing in parts of the country.

Khalid said Karzai expressed his sympathy after he called the president on his cell phone from the village. "He told them how he hurt for them and how sad he was for their loss," Khalid said.

One of the homes that was attacked had only one wall standing, and looked ready to topple over. A blast ripped a hole through the middle of another.

Elsewhere yesterday, a rocket hit a house during a night-time clash between suspected Taliban insurgents and Nato and Afghan security forces in the farming village of Tajikai in Helmand province's Grishk district, 135 miles west of Kandahar city, police said.

The rocket attack came after Afghan police called in Nato air support during the clash, which began late Tuesday and left one Taliban militant killed and three police wounded, said provincial police chief Ghulam Nabi Malakhel.

Nato said in a statement that its aircraft and helicopters had fired on a "positively identified" compound from where the suspected Taliban were firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons.

"Initial bomb damage from an observer on the ground confirmed a direct hit on the compound," the statement said.

However, Abdul Rehman, a resident contacted by phone, said the rocket fired from an aircraft killed 13 villagers inside the home. He said relatives of the dead told him all those inside the dried mud house - five women, five children, three men - were killed, including the house's owner, Nabi Khel.

Nato said it will "fully investigate" the claim that civilians were killed in the strike.