Iraq By The Numbers

Michael Goldfarb, of the Worldwide Standard, has a piece everyone needs to take a look at. As September turns into October, we now have overwhelming and definitive proof that through scientific analysis the surge is working and deaths are down.

Meanwhile, Coalition casualties are remarkably low for the month of September,
with 60* U.S. troops KIA
so far this month. With a little luck, this will be the lowest count in more
than a year. But one also needs to figure in the increase in force levels.
...
And as far as Iraqi units, while they are increasing in number and
visibility, their casualties dropped dramatically over the last two months--this
will be the first time ever that Iraqi Security Forces will see two consecutive
months with less than 100 KIA (barring a major incident over the weekend). Also,
the number of civilians killed has dropped to just over 600, the first time that
numbers been below 1,000 in over a year, and less than a quarter of what it was
in March (2,762). (All numbers from iCasualties.org)

So, the deaths for U.S. soldiers, Iraqi soldiers, and Iraqi civilians are all at their lowest levels in over a year at least. All of the upper level military will continue to maintain that these levels continue to be too high, and they are, however the important thing is trajectory. Deaths continue to drop no matter how they are analyzed and as September turns into October and eventually we get to 2008, if we continue as such, we will soon get to a level of violence, or lack thereof, that is acceptable.

Now, let's look at the other side. How many bad guys are being killed?

More than 19,000 militants have been killed in fighting with coalition forces
since the insurgency began more than four years ago, according to military
statistics released for the first time.
The statistics show that 4,882
militants were killed in clashes with coalition forces this year, a 25% increase
over all of last year.
The increase in enemy deaths this year reflects more
aggressive tactics adopted by American forces and an additional 30,000 U.S.
troops ordered by the White House this year.

So, good guys deaths are down and bad guy's deaths are up. I am not a math wizard or military strategist but it sounds to that if we employ the Iraq by the numbers analysis things are looking better and better everyday in Iraq.