Positive News From Iraq….MSM Shrugs

It is whispered about at the margins of meetings and discussed in Washington parties where rumour is passed around with the wine and canapés. It even appears, fleetingly, to be fact.

“The day nobody died from violence in Iraq” is a date that has been much anticipated in the White House — where President Bush is desperate to hail the success of his surge of 30,000 troops this year. But no one can quite say when this event, longed for by most, if not all, people on the street corners of Baghdad, occurred.

“It was some time this week, wasn’t it?” says a senior military source. “Or maybe last week.” Another diplomatic official confidently asserted that there were “at least two such days this month”. When, exactly? “Not sure,” he replied.

Such foggy vagueness may be concealing a truly significant transformation on the ground in Iraq.

There have certainly been several days in the past month when no US or British soldiers were killed.

During a five-day stretch between October 19 and 23, there were no deaths among coalition forces. Although three US servicemen died from “non-hostile causes”, this was the longest period without combat deaths for nearly four years. And, between October 27 and 29, there were three more days without coalition deaths.

Such statistics do not take account of deaths among the Iraqi security forces or civilians. But Iraqis, too, have had days when no one in their ranks has died. On October 13, for instance, neither the coalition nor the Iraqi military suffered any deaths. But one Iraqi policeman was killed, along with four reported civilian deaths in Baghdad.

Two days later, there were no deaths among the coalition but six among the Iraqi security forces.

October 19 was a death-free day for both coalition and Iraqi security forces, but 12 civilians were killed.

The civilian death toll was lower on October 23 — when four were killed — but they were joined in the mortuaries by two Iraqi policemen. On October 30 this week, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior reported that there were no civilian deaths at all in Baghdad, but three US troops and four Iraqi policemen were killed.

It is beyond dispute, though, that the tide of violence in Iraq has been stemmed.

And now with the casualty rates down significantly the Democrats and our MSM cannot be bothered to talk about Iraq.  Looking at today’s front page of the New York Times you find stories about:

• The AG nomination
• The Citigroup chief
• Rudy Giuliani
• The drug Lipitor
• The NY Marathon
• Aging convicts in Japan

Deep into the paper you finally get a story on how “Bush thinks” the war is going well. 

I will credit MSNBC a bit tho for putting up this report yesterday on the progress.  Albeit with warnings about how this all may just be temporary.  A dozen paragraphs into the story you get this comment from a Baghdad business owner that says quite a bit:

Firas Rahim, who owns a shop
selling clothing for men and children in the Karradah neighborhood, said the
number of customers in the store has risen 75 percent in recent days. He now
stays open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Before the chaos diminished he was open only
from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

“I was afraid to stay open longer
because of the bombings and violence. Things are looking better now. My business
is booming,” Rahim said. “I have whole families coming in again. It’s a positive
sign. I hope it lasts. Baghdadis love to live at night. I used to close after
midnight and hope, someday, I can again.”

The violence rate in Iraq now appears to be better then most American cities. 

Guess that’s not good enough to make the front page of the New York Times.

UPDATE

Missed this Times of London editorial that is right on point:

In Iraq, it seems good news is deemed no news. There has been
striking success in the past few months in the attempt to improve security,
defeat al-Qaeda sympathisers and create the political conditions in which a
settlement between the Shia and the Sunni communities can be reached. This has
not been an accident but the consequence of a strategy overseen by General David
Petraeus in the past several months. While summarised by the single word “surge”
his efforts have not just been about putting more troops on the ground but also
employing them in a more sophisticated manner. This drive has effectively broken
whatever alliances might have been struck in the past by terrorist factions and
aggrieved Sunnis. Cities such as Fallujah, once notorious centres of slaughter,
have been transformed in a remarkable time.

~~~

The current achievements, and they are achievements, are being treated as
almost an embarrassment in certain quarters. The entire context of the contest
for the Democratic nomination for president has been based on the conclusion
that Iraq is an absolute disaster and the first task of the next president is to
extricate the United States at maximum speed. ….

All of these attitudes have become outdated. There are many valid complaints
about the manner in which the Bush Administration and Donald Rumsfeld, in
particular, managed Iraq after the 2003 military victory. But not to recognize
that matters have improved vastly in the year since Mr Rumsfeld’s resignation
from the Pentagon was announced and General Petraeus was liberated would be
ridiculous. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have to appreciate that
Iraq is no longer, as they thought, an exercise in damage limitation but one of
making the most of an opportunity.

Ridiculous yes, but that sums up todays Democrat party quite well.