Outside a Brooklyn art gallery, Kristy Knight threw her arms in the air in exasperation when she was asked about the war in Iraq, which has her angry, frustrated and flatly disbelieving President Bush.

Across the country, as he finished off a cup of coffee in Grants Pass, Ore., Gerald Fitzgerald insisted the only way the United States should leave Iraq is with victory – no “cutting and running or bailing or anything else.”

But when Knight gave her forecast for the war, she could have been speaking for either of them: “I don’t think it’s ending anytime soon.”

President Bush, addressing the nation on the war Thursday from the Oval Office, said it was possible, “for the first time in years, for people who have been on opposite sides of this difficult debate to come together.”

And in a way, they have, if interviews scattered around the nation after the speech are any indication: Americans expect a large U.S. presence in Iraq for years to come. They disagree passionately about whether the war was a good idea, and whether, as the president insists, maintaining it will ultimately make the United States safer. But few appear to think an end is in sight.

“We’ll be there for at least another two, three years,” predicted Jim Hudgens, a bartender and musician who was out for a bike ride in Fresno, Calif., and who described himself as a liberal Democrat. “No one seems to have the guts to change policy.”

The president told Americans the “surge” strategy he announced in January, which increased the American force in Iraq by about 30,000 troops, was meeting its objectives.

Bush said it was possible for about 5,700 U.S. troops to come home by Christmas, and by late Friday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates had raised the possibility that the force could drop to 100,000 by the end of 2008.

That would mean a significant withdrawal from the roughly 168,000 U.S. troops in Iraq now but would guarantee a large American presence there when Bush hands the presidency to his successor.

That sits just fine with Lee Daugherty, a salesman at The Gun Shop in Savannah, Ga., who considers himself a conservative-leaning independent.

The interviews Friday, an unscientific sampling, reflected some of the familiar opinions of the war itself. Some people mentioned weapons of mass destruction that have never been found; others complained the media was not reporting enough good news from Iraq.

Scientific surveys, meanwhile, have shown an American public clearly turned against the war.

According to the most recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll on Iraq, 57 percent of Americans say the war was a mistake, compared with just 37 percent who said say it was the right decision. Those figures have held roughly steady for more than a year.

A separate AP-Ipsos poll put approval of the president’s handling of the war at just 33 percent. Both polls were completed before the Bush address and had margins of sampling error of 3.1 percent.