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Finally! An Iraq Trend the Left Can Embrace

2:57 PM, Dec 29, 2007 • By MICHAEL GOLDFARB
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A Reuters report on Iraq today carries the ridiculous yet entirely accurate headline "Iraq gains are "reversible": Petraeus." Of course the gains are reversible, but that was hardly the key message Petraeus was delivering in his letter to the troops. But more interesting is that after reporting that--according to Petraeus and unchallenged by anyone--"the number of attacks in Iraq had fallen by 60 percent since June and the number of civilian deaths had fallen by 75 percent since a year ago," the story adds this nugget:

But figures supplied at Petraeus's briefing also showed a slight rise in suicide car and vest bombs since October. At least 33 people were killed by two suicide bombs on Christmas Day, and 10 people died in a Baghdad car bomb on Friday.

The left has already pounced. Think Progress says "Rate of suicide bombs rises in Iraq." And the Huffington Post runs the story under the same header. But take a look at the graph in question:

Trends.jpg

More by Michael Goldfarb

That tiny rise, from what appear to be 18 month lows, is the story the left has latched on to. Meanwhile, the total number of high-profile attacks is down sharply--and "December is on track to be the least deadly month for U.S.-led forces in Iraq." Funny how HuffPo and Think Progress didn't find that newsworthy.