 |
| Buying bread: American troops, like these on patrol in Baghdad, have seen an improvement in security. Officials credit weapons
finds, disruptions of bombmaking cells, and the 'surge' of US forces. Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters |
U.S. troop losses plunge in Iraq
Combat fatalities could be as low as 23 for October, a level not seen since 2006. Iraqi losses also fall.
from the October 31, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
What makes it significant is that US forces in Iraq are still conducting operations, not "hunkering down" in the relative security of the many sprawling US bases.
"There is no other way to interpret it but as extremely good news," says Michael O'Hanlon, a senior analyst at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington.
Conditions remain dangerous, of course. A suicide bomber on Monday killed nearly 30 people at the morning roll call of a police unit in Baquba, north of Baghdad. The same day, a brigadier general assigned to the US Army Corps of Engineers became the most senior American officer to be seriously injured by a roadside bomb. He is expected to make a full recovery. In the meantime, extremist elements within the Iraqi security forces pose an ongoing concern.
But it's hard to argue with fewer US casualties, says Mr. O'Hanlon, who is both hawkish and critical of the war. He took some flak over the summer for co-writing an op-ed that critics said was too rosy about the troop surge in Iraq, though much of the article's analysis has so far been borne out.
"There are a million things still wrong in Iraq, but it is extremely good news in what remains a very difficult war," he says.
In Iraq, there's never a simple answer to any question, and the explanation for why security is improving is no different.
The so-called Anbar Awakening, in which Sunni sheikhs in Anbar Province came together to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq, and an apparent retreat of the Shiite militia Jash al-Mahdi have lessened the number of bombings and other violence, US military commanders in Iraq say. In addition, the proliferation of what is known as "concerned citizens" – average Iraqis typically paid by the US to maintain security in their neighborhoods – has changed the security situation on the ground in places like Babil and Diyala Provinces, where both US and Iraqi officials say people have tired of the violence.
But the senior military official says recent discoveries of major weapons caches – five in the past week – and the disruption of bombmaking cells by going after their leaders have also had an impact.
"We've really focused on attacking the leadership," the senior defense official says. "We're really focusing on trying to take down that enemy line of operation."
RSS feed
){kind=link}