Blip?

When the number of our troops killed in Iraq went down for the fifth month in March, I noted that it would be tough to match that trend in April. Especially when the beginning of the month saw a flash flood kill a lot all at once in a vehicle accident.

Well, we've surpassed March already and we still have nearly two weeks to go in April.

It may take a bit to see why our casualties have gone up. One thing I can conclude for sure is that our decline before wasn't because we were avoiding combat.

Still, with one general reporting that al Qaeda is reducing their efforts in Iraq after failing to halt democracy, I'd expect the trend to continue down despite the April numbers. Such a withdrawal would be consistent with past al Qaeda statements about the bad impact of elections and democracy in Iraq on al Qaeda fortunes.