>From the Monday New York Times
U.S. Says Attacks in Iraq Fell to Feb. 2006 Level
By CARA BUCKLEY and MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: November 19, 2007
BAGHDAD, Nov. 18 - The American military said Sunday that the weekly number of
attacks in Iraq had fallen to the lowest level since just before the February
2006 bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, an event commonly used as a
benchmark for the country's worst spasm of bloodletting after the American
invasion nearly five years ago.
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Ali Abbas/European Pressphoto Agency An Iraqi soldier hangs a poster urging
Iraqis to support their troops. Many Iraqis appear to be exhausted by the
violence.
Data released at a news conference in Baghdad showed that attacks had declined
to the lowest level since January 2006. It is the third week in a row that
attacks have been at this reduced level.
The statistics on attack trends have long been a standard measure that the
American military has used to assess violence in Iraq. Because the data have
been gathered for years and are deemed generally reliable they allow analysts
to identify trends.
Military officials said the attacks were directed against American and Iraqi
forces, as well as civilians. But since the source for the data is American
military reports, and not the Iraqi government, the figures do not provide an
exhaustive measure of sectarian violence.
Nonetheless, the figures added to a body of evidence, compiled by American and
Iraqi officials, indicating that the violence had diminished significantly
since the United States reinforced troop levels in Iraq and adopted a new
counterinsurgency strategy.
The data released Sunday cover attacks using car bombs, roadside bombs, mines,
mortars, rockets, surface-to-air missiles and small arms. According to the
statistics, roughly 575 attacks occurred last week.
That is substantially fewer than the more than 700 attacks that were recorded
the week that Sunni militants set off a wave of sectarian violence in Iraq by
blowing up a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006. And it represents a
huge drop since June when attacks soared to nearly 1,600 one week.
American officials said other measures indicated that civilian deaths had
dropped. Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a spokesman for the command, said civilian
deaths had dropped by 60 percent since June.
Military analysts said a number of factors explained the drop. They say, for
example, that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a predominantly Iraqi insurgent group
with foreign leadership, has been greatly weakened by American military attacks.
Thousands of new Sunni volunteers have made common cause with the Americans.
About 72,000 such civilians have joined the effort, American officials said,
and 45,000 each receive a $300 a month stipend from the Americans to help with
the effort.
Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric, has ordered his militiamen to stand
down. American military officials also say that Iran appears to be abiding by a
commitment to reduce the flow of roadside bombs and other weapons into Iraq.
Beyond that, many Iraqis appear to be exhausted by the sectarian violence and
eager for a modicum of stability.
To be sure, the level of violence in Iraq is still high. Even as military
officials announced the figures, Iraq had one of its deadliest days in weeks,
with at least 22 people killed. Among the killed were nine civilians in Karada,
a mixed neighborhood in central Baghdad, when a car bomber rammed a convoy
carrying Iraq's deputy finance minister. The official was not hurt, but a guard
was among the wounded.
Also on Sunday, three children were killed and seven were wounded in Baquba, to
the north, in an explosion in a small garden where American soldiers were
handing out candy, ballpoint pens and soccer balls. Three American soldiers
were also killed. Their names were not released.
Some experts said the data indicated a downward trend in violent attacks,
albeit from relatively high levels - 2006 was one of the most violent years in
the war.
The most pressing issue, they said, was how to keep them down and reduce
violence further given the failure of Iraqi leaders to achieve reconciliation.
"These trends are stunning in military terms and beyond the predictions of most
proponents of the surge last winter," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst
at the Brookings Institution, referring to President Bush's troop reinforcement
plan. "Nobody knows if the trends are durable in the absence of national
reconciliation and in the face of major U.S. troop drawdowns in 2008."
Military officials stressed that attack levels might fluctuate in the future
and that it was too soon to say that the United States had turned the corner in
Iraq. Past periods of relative calm in Iraq have also been shattered by
violence. And American officials have complained that the Iraqi government is
not taking the opportunity in the current lull to attempt serious political
progress.
"While violence is turning in the right direction, a tough fight remains ahead
and progress will be uneven," Admiral Smith said. "Violence is still too high
in many areas of Baghdad and across Iraq."
Still, he rattled off statistics that pointed to progress in lowering violence.
Casualties suffered by Iraqi security forces, he said, were down 40 percent
since the beginning of the troop reinforcement plan. Civilian fatalities in
Baghdad, he said, were down 75 percent in recent months. In some areas, the
attacks have not been so low since the spring and summer of 2005.
Since the violence has decreased in Baghdad people have begun trickling back
into cafes and streets in the hope that the calm will last.
Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said the dip in violence had
allowed 7,000 families to return to Baghdad, though it was not clear how he
arrived at that figure.
Cara Buckley reported from Baghdad, and Michael R. Gordon from Washington. Qais
Mizher and an Iraqi reporter for The New York Times contributed from Diyala
Province
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