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August 07, 2007
The July Death Toll
Is the Iraq surge actually working? That's a very difficult question to answer. There have been, in recent days, some reports from Iraq that at least the security situation may have improved, though not true of the political situation. (Tough to make political progress when the Iraqi parliament takes the month off.) Over four years into the war, and with American military personnel serving bravely under terrible conditions, one can only hope for improvement there.
But are things really any better? One statistic that has been bandied about by those arguing they are, is that July had the fewest deaths of Americans in Iraq of any month this year- 80. Good news, right? Well, the death of 80 American soldiers will never be good news in our book, but if it represented a real decline then yes, that's at least better news. But not so fast. Stephen Farrell at Firedoglake is on the case.
While the July 2007 numbers look good compared to previous months this year, take a look at them vis-a-vis previous July totals.
July 2003: 48
July 2004: 54
July 2005: 54
July 2006: 43
July 2007: 80
(Source: Iraq Coaltion Casualties Web site)
Not so good news after all.
September is fast approaching, the deadline many Republican members of Congress have to set to weigh the situation in Iraq and reevaluate their support for the conflict. As disastrous as this war has been to date, all Americans should welcome improvement in Iraq, but it's got to be real improvement.
Posted by houtopia at August 7, 2007 07:57 PM
Comments
Tough to make political progress when the Iraqi parliament takes the month off.I don't know -- our own Congress takes off the entire month of August every year, and they haven't gotten any less work done this month than most.
Posted by: Tomas at August 9, 2007 10:03 AM
True -- but we're not dealing with de facto civil war, where hundreds of people are being blown up every week. The Iraqi government is teetering on the verge of collapse.
Posted by: houtopia at August 9, 2007 11:04 AM