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| Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno: Drop in US troop deaths is an 'initial positive sign.' Maya Alleruzzo/AP/file |
US troop fatalities in Iraq drop sharply
The toll is falling in the most dangerous provinces, not just in the Baghdad 'surge' zone.
from the August 1, 2007 edition
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Iraqis are also seeing a decrease in violence. The number of Iraqi security forces and civilian fatalities has declined since May as well, according to icasualties.org, a website that tracks such information. The site reports that there were 1,664 civilians and Iraqi security forces killed in July, down from 1,980 in May, but it notes that no such tallies are completely accurate and are probably much higher.
The reduction in violence doesn't appear to be the result of summer weather, when the intense heat might discourage insurgent attacks. According to an analysis by the Marine command in Anbar, violence trends upward from a low point in January, when it's coldest, through summer to October for each of the last three years. This year, according to Marine Maj. Gen. Walter Gaskin, commander of Multi-national Force West, the violence in Anbar has trended downward instead.
All this may be illustrating what to some is a new reality in Iraq even if much of Washington has yet to acknowledge it, says Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.
Mr. O'Hanlon has been critical of the war and has remained skeptical of the current strategy. But on Monday, he coauthored an Op-Ed in The New York Times titled "A War We Might Just Win." In it, O'Hanlon says he is impressed with the improved security situation, the reasonably high morale of US troops, and the increasing competency of Iraqi forces. "We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms," O'Hanlon wrote, along with Brookings colleague Kenneth Pollack. "As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily 'victory' but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with."
Military officials are heartened by decreases in American fatalities but are reluctant to characterize it as a turning point.
"My initial thought is this is what we thought would happen once we got control of the real key areas that are controlled by these terrorists," Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the No. 2 American commander in Iraq, said on Thursday. "It's an initial positive sign, but I would argue I need a bit more time to make an assessment of whether it's a true trend or not."
In May, noting the high number of casualties among American forces, General Odierno said it was the result of taking the fight to the enemy, going into places like Diyala and Baquba to fight insurgents, and that he expected over time that the number of casualties would decrease, as it appears to have done now.
Odierno says he may need more time, but Congress is waiting for an assessment as early as next month. That's when Odierno's boss, Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, is expected to provide a comprehensive report of the security situation in Iraq. Military officials caution that General Petraeus's assessment may not make specific recommendations regarding a possible drawdown of the more than 155,000 US troops currently serving in Iraq.
"Petraeus is very, very cautious about how much success he is going to advertise," the senior uniformed official says. "The culminating point is when the hearts and minds finally tip" in Iraq.
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