No Casualties in Anbar - Violence Down in Iraq

Good news from Iraq.

Yesterday, for the first time since March of 2003, there were no military casualties in Anbar.

No American casualties, No Iraqi casualties.

None, zero, zip.

Joint Chiefs spokesman Major General Richard Sherlock made that statement Wednesday.

This looks impressive:

	Violence in and around Baghdad	down 59 %
	Car bombs	down 65 %
	Casualties from car bombs and roadside bombs	down 80 %
	Casualties from enemy attacks	down 77 %
	Operations against Iraqi security forces	down 62 %
	Assassination attempts for sectarian reasons	down 72 %

I may be over-simplifying, or being naive, but this really does look like good news. For America and Iraq, at least.

Two things happened in Iraq this year:

• The Anbar Awakening - sheiks decided that Al Qaeda in Iraq wasn't good for Iraq.
  (They were thinking about it before September, when Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha's assassination helped make up their minds.)
• The troop surge that peaked in June, 2007.

At the risk of being simplistic, I think that talking with the sheiks in Iraq, while making a determined effort to weed out terrorists who were beheading and blowing up Iraqis, may have resulted in today's good news.