Some Perspective on Iraq

The Bush Administration is celebrating recent gains in Iraq and a so-called decline in deaths as a monumental achievement. However the numbers are for one month- no long trends showing success have been established in Iraq. The lower numbers over the past month simply brought the bloodshed down to where it was a year ago...during the Summer and Fall of 2006.

When the Bush Administration and their pro-war Republican allies in the U.S. Congress tell the story on these declining death figures, they try to convince you that victory is just around the next corner.

Shaun Mullen of Kiko's House and the Moderate Voice has provided much needed context to the recent "gains" and "improving numbers" in Iraq. The graphs provided show that the situation there is far from victory.

I hope that the recent gains can be sustained (although I suspect that much of this is attributed to fuzzy math regarding which murder victims to count, etc). However, we have seen these dips before. The war in Iraq has been cyclical from day one.