Decrease in Iraq violence gets some attention

NY Times:

Back in September, General David Petraeus reported a slide in violence that had some impressed and others saying that it might be a fluke. About two months later, many more are acknowledging progress, and Osama bin Laden sounds like one of them.

Adding to the optimism are news stories anticipating the lowest American death toll since early 2006. If the toll remains at 23 — and that won’t be a sure thing until several days after the month is over and the military finishes its October announcements — that would be a drop of 97 U.S. deaths from the month of May.

Even an alarming Pentagon estimate on a quadrupling of sniper attacks turned out to be very wrong. Indeed, sniper attacks have dropped.

Exactly two months after its pessimistic report to Congress, the Government Accountability Office began a new report on a positive note. “Since G.A.O. last reported in September 2007,” the report said, “the number of enemy attacks in Iraq has declined.”...

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They even have a chart showing the dramatic decline in violence. With the NY Times taking note it will be even harder for the Democrats to ignore the fact that they have been dead wrong about the surge and have put themselves on record in numerous votes. With that kind of record the voters should be wary of listening to them on the war.

Even the liberal Guardian in the UK attributes the decline in casualties to the surge.