As the WWS noted earlier today, major news wires report that both Iraqi civilian deaths and U.S. military deaths have declined dramatically. The Associated Press reports:
A total of 64 American forces died in September -- the lowest monthly toll since July 2006.
The decline in Iraqi civilian deaths was even more dramatic, falling from 1,975 in August to 922 last month, a decline of 53.3 percent. The breakdown in September was 844 civilians and 78 police and Iraqi soldiers, according to Iraq's ministries of Health, Interior and Defense.
The report also notes that Petraeus's spokesman credits this success to the surge of U.S. troops.
Right-wing bloggers are picking up the story -- but I have yet to find any lefty bloggers reporting this undeniably good news.
Via Instapundit, Gateway Pundit has a telling graph showing the drastic decline in violent deaths in Iraq since November 2006. Check out his links to reputable death-toll trackers to see for yourself.
Power Line makes the interesting point that "It seems remarkable that a strategy involving a more aggressive use of a larger number of troops could result in fewer fatalities, but that appears to be the case."
A.J. at The Strata-Sphere agrees, and writes:
The Surge is producing the one result the pessimists claimed it could never produce - protecting Iraqis. The theory from the Surrender-at-all-costs crowd is our efforts will be useless in a civil war. But if this is not a civil war but is the blood-thirsty, repression of Iraqis by al-Qaeda then we would expect to see a drop off in the deaths of Iraqis as we clear out and secure areas from al-Qaeda's thugs. Well, that is exactly what is happening.
And Jules Crittenden compiled an interesting Iraq news roundup.
Ed at Captain's Quarters remarks, "The US and Iraqi forces have momentum, and that has begun to translate into ground-up unity. With the successes becoming ever more apparent, it is small wonder that Democratic presidential contenders can't commit to abandoning Iraq before 2013." (See last week's post on the subject.)
And in another post, Ed sums it up: "The metrics have now shifted dramatically in Iraq. All violent deaths have dropped sharply, showing that the aggressive tactics and strategy of General David Petraeus have met with success. The terrorists have splintered and the tribal leaders in western Iraq have mostly aligned themselves with the US and the Iraqi Army. Those who claimed that Petraeus would misrepresent the truth in Iraq have nothing left of their argument."
Take a look at the numbers: Democrats can no longer ignore that the surge is working.
