More good news for Dems to ignore in Iraq

NY Times:

An American military official on Thursday reported a sharp decrease in the number of roadside bombs and other homemade explosive devices in Iraq. The official, Maj. Gen. James E. Simmons, said Iran, which American officials contend is the source of the deadliest of those weapons, appeared to be abiding by a reported commitment to halt their flow into Iraq.

General Simmons said 1,560 improvised explosive devices directed at international forces or Iraqis across the country were identified in October, down after a steady monthly decline from 3,239 in March. Half of the bombs recorded for October were found before they detonated and were cleared, but the other half exploded.

“We have found weapons that we believe are associated with Iran in some of the caches that we have picked up,” said General Simmons, deputy commanding general of the Multinational Corps-Iraq. “But most of these weapons appear to have been in Iraq for months, so we have not seen any recent evidence that weapons continue to come across the border into Iraq.”

He added, “We believe that the initiatives and the commitments that the Iranians have made appear to be holding up.”

...

General Simmons said the number of attacks using improvised explosive devices had declined in all areas, but he conceded that 1,560 was still a “significant number,” comparable with the level of attacks in September 2005.

He said most such attacks were now in northern Iraq. There have been indications that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni extremist group that American intelligence agencies say is led by foreigners, has shifted some of its activities out of Baghdad and Anbar Province, where they have been challenged by American and Iraqi security forces and the “Awakening” movement of Sunni tribes.

He said the attacks involving improvised explosive devices were mainly carried out by elements of the insurgent group and criminal groups formerly associated with the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia affiliated with the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr. According to an American explosives expert based in northern Iraq, explosively formed penetrators were “predominantly” weapons used by Shiite militias, whereas Sunni groups tend to rely on buried roadside bombs and land mines. General Simmons declined to give a breakdown of the attacks in the northern belt, from Taji to Mosul.

...

There is more. I expect the decreases to continue as al Qaeda and the Sadr forces run out of their current inventory of bombs. The accelerated pace of find enemy weapons caches should cut into their capacity as well as fewer surviving fighters. Most the the caches are now being disclosed by Iraqis some of whom are former insurgents.