The Situation in Iraq Continues to Improve

According to the Washington Times, the situation on the ground in Iraq continues to improve.

Extremist attacks on U.S. troops have dropped from 256 in August to 153 in September and 36 so far this month, according to the Defense Department.

Even war-torn Fallujah has improved.

"Municipal governments are starting to stand up. Fallujah now has a city council, has a mayor, has a city council chairman who are all very responsive to the needs of their constituency," Stephen Falkan, the team leader of the provincial reconstruction team in the Anbar province, said at a press conference in Fallujah this week.

This is the same Fallujah that was AQI's capitol and the site of the most gruesome display of of the war. After the brutal killing of the four contract workers, the city was the site of the most bloody battle of the insurgency between our troops and AQI. Of course, times have changed and in the more recent history, It is all part of the Anbar Awakening. Fallujah along with Ramadi used to be not only the most dangerous cities in Iraq but maybe in the world. Now, Ramadi is one of the safest cities in Iraq and so safe that many coalitions report being bored. Of course, according to the Times article, Ramadi is also on its way to joining Ramadi as a city that is the beacon of coalition success.

Civil services are also returning to Iraq. According to Amy Proctor, Iraqis now get an average of 15 hours of electricity per day. This is in comparison to only six hours of electricity a day under Saddam.

None of this news should surprise any of my readers. I have already pointed out that our counter insurgency strategy has directly lead to what I refer to as divide and counter with many of the insurgents turning on each other. The crumbling of AQI in Anbar has lead directly to the crumbling of Shia militias in Baghdad. The militias used to be the only force to protect the common citizens against AQI but with them no longer a threat, the common citizen now sees the Shia militias for the evil psychopaths that they are. In fact, the violence is down so much that most grave diggers are now looking for different employment.

All this good news is not lost on Americans. The new Harris Poll shows the favorability for the war going up in every way.

The number of those who say things are getting better for U.S. troops has increased from 13 percent in March and 20 percent in August to 25 percent now.

Negativity has lessened: Those who say things are getting worse for troops fell from 55 percent in January and 51 percent in March to 32 percent now.

With all of this good news, we will soon have to willfully suspend disbelief in order to believe the anti war's tired story that the strategy isn't working.