Today's Reading Assignment

Iraq by the numbers, from Bill Roggio at the Long War Journal. The first slide in Bill's article is an update of one we posted a few months ago. Note the continuing, dramatic decline in attacks.

Here's the latest slide, which includes data through 7 December of this year. Note the dramatic decline in all types of attacks since February of this year, and the commencement of the troop surge.


Wonder if Harry Reid's seen this one? Still, we must give the Senate Majority Leader--and his party--some credit for consistency. Mr. Reid and his colleagues would have been right at home in supporting George McClellan's "The War is Lost/Let's Negotiate platform of 1864, as William Katz observes.

H/T: Powerline.

The Decrease in Violence

Since late summer, we've been hearing reports about decreasing violence in Iraq. But the PowerPoint slide below nicely illustrates the magnitude of the drop:

As the graphic indicates, overall attack levels are at their lowest point since the Samarra mosque bombing in early 2006. Can the decline be sustained? That remains to be seen, but the trend is clearly encouraging.

Another point to consider: the graphic was released by General Petraeus's public affairs officer a few days ago. I found it in Max Boot's excellent blog at Commentary magazine. We can assume the same slide is available to MSM outlets--or, at the very least, they could present the information in their own graphics. Have you seen this slide in a major American newspaper, or on the evening news?

Didn't think so.