Eighteen U.S. servicemembers have been identified as having died in Iraq so far in May, according to the Pentagon. To date, the least deadly month of the five-year war was February 2004, when 21 U.S. troops were killed in a 29-day period. The number of wounded also has fallen.
Enemy attacks are down as well:
Overall, militant attacks in Iraq have dropped to levels not seen since spring 2004, U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll said this week. Attacks are down 70% since President Bush ordered a U.S. troop increase, or "surge," early last year.
Sigh. After five years our enemies in Iraq are still just "militants." One wonders what they'd have to do to rise to the level of "miscreants" let alone "terrorists." But I digress.
The spring 2004 reference has been defined in other articles as March 2004. This is significant because until April 2004, we counted enemy attacks differently. Starting in April 2004, we counted every attack. Until then, I think we only counted attacks that inflicted casualties. Even better, more enemy IEDs are discovered before they detonate so more of the "attacks" are duds. So our May 2008 statistics are down to March 2004 levels--which undercount attacks as we now define them. Our progress is better than the attack statistics show since it is apples and oranges time.
Look at the KIA statistics chart in the article for support. In May 2008, barring a last day surge, we'll have suffered 18 KIA in May according to the article. In March 2004, we suffered 50. And we had fewer troops in Iraq in March 2004.
On the other end of the equation, Iraqi forces are better:
The U.S. is beginning its withdrawal from Iraq. U.S. troops strength is expected to decline from 170,000 to 140,000 by the end of the Summer. The reduction is made possible by the growing number of Iraqi army and police units that can do the job. U.S. military advisors have seen this coming for years, as they tracked dozens of different metrics (statistics on various aspects of Iraqi performance). ...
These metrics are kept secret, as the enemy would love to have some insight into the effectiveness of the security forces. But in the last year, many Iraqi army and police units have revealed their capabilities through their performance.
Iraqi troops never had to be as good as our troops. They had to be better than the enemy. Our surge broke the most effective jihadi enemies, making the enemy less effective; and bought time to improve the quality and quantity of Iraqi forces.
These are very good statistics. The enemy has had many months since our surge broke their momentum in September 2007. Yet our enemies have not regrouped and adapted to counter-attack us. Unless the Basra conflict actually preempted an enemy operation.
Unless our enemies can mount a new offensive, or a new more potent enemy arises, they indicate to me a real level of defeat for the enemy.
