That the official line from the editors at the Washington Post, who declare that:
A congressional study and several news stories in September questioned reports by the U.S. military that casualties were down. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), challenging the testimony of Gen. David H. Petraeus, asserted that "civilian deaths have risen" during this year's surge of American forces.
A month later, there isn't much room for such debate, at least about the latest figures. In September, Iraqi civilian deaths were down 52 percent from August and 77 percent from September 2006, according to the Web site icasualties.org. The Iraqi Health Ministry and the Associated Press reported similar results. U.S. soldiers killed in action numbered 43 -- down 43 percent from August and 64 percent from May, which had the highest monthly figure so far this year. The American combat death total was the lowest since July 2006 and was one of the five lowest monthly counts since the insurgency in Iraq took off in April 2004.
During the first 12 days of October the death rates of Iraqis and Americans fell still further. So far during the Muslim month of Ramadan, which began Sept. 13 and ends this weekend, 36 U.S. soldiers have been reported as killed in hostile actions. That is remarkable given that the surge has deployed more American troops in more dangerous places and that in the past al-Qaeda has staged major offensives during Ramadan. Last year, at least 97 American troops died in combat during Ramadan. Al-Qaeda tried to step up attacks this year, U.S. commanders say -- so far, with stunningly little success.
They of course stipulate that this doesn't mean the war has been won, but they do say flatly that "it's looking more and more as though those in and outside of Congress who last month were assailing Gen. Petraeus's credibility and insisting that there was no letup in Iraq's bloodshed were -- to put it simply -- wrong."
In addition to Hillary Clinton and the folks at MoveOn, perhaps the most visible assault on Petraeus's credibility came from the editors of the New York Times. On September 14, they opined under the title "No Exit, No Strategy":
Before he spoke, Iraq's brutal reality had debunked the claims of political and military success made by Gen. David Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the ambassador in Baghdad. First, The Times reported that the only sliver of political progress -- a tortuous compromise on sharing oil revenues -- was evaporating. Then came news of the assassination of the Anbar tribal leader whose decision to fight alongside the Americans was cited by Mr. Bush as proof that the war's tide was turning -- even though it had nothing to do with the increase in forces.
Mr. Bush's claims last night about how well the war is going are believable only if you use Pentagon numbers so obviously cooked that they call to mind the way Americans were duped into first supporting this war.
There will be a lot said in coming days about Mr. Bush's ''new strategy,'' just as there was after each of his previous major addresses on the war. If there was a new strategy, it would be easy to recognize.
Can they recognize it now? Do they still claim that the Pentagon, presumably in collusion with the folks at iCasualties.org, have cooked the books in order to dupe the American public into supporting the war? It will be interesting to see how the editors at the Times contort themselves in order to avoid following the facts as the editors at the Post have done.
