Ruh-Roh.
More bad news for the Party of Surrender.
Violence in Iraq is at the lowest level since liberation.
Violence in Iraq is at its lowest level since the first year of the liberation in 2004.
The AP reported:
Violence in Iraq is at its lowest levels since the first year of the American invasion, finally opening a window for reconciliation among rival sects, the second-ranking U.S. general said Sunday as Iraqi forces formally took control of security across half the country.
Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the man responsible for the ground campaign in Iraq, said that the first six months of 2007 were probably the most violent period since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The past six months, however, had seen some of the lowest levels of violence since the conflict began, Odierno said, attributing the change to an increase in both American troops and better-trained Iraqi forces.
“I feel we are back in ’03 and early ’04. Frankly I was here then, and the environment is about the same in terms of security in my opinion,” he said. “What is different from then is that the Iraqi security forces are significantly more mature.”
Violence killed at least 27 Iraqis on Sunday — 16 of them members of a U.S.-backed neighborhood patrol killed in clashes with al-Qaida in a volatile province neighboring Baghdad. Thirty-five al-Qaida fighters also died in that fighting, Iraqi officials said.
Odierno said Anbar province, once plagued by violence, only recorded 12 attacks in the past week, down from an average of 26 per week over the past three months.
…The U.S.-led coalition has been gradually transferring control of security to the Iraqi government and Britain’s handover of southern Basra was the latest in a series that began in July 2006. The coalition retains control over half of Iraq’s 18 provinces, including Anbar and central areas where violence has flagged but not stopped.
Actually, Basra is the 9th of 18 Iraqi Provinces to be handed over to the Iraqi provincial government- that would be half, not “over half” as the AP states.
