Iraq violence still declining, Odierno says

Iraq violence still declining, Odierno says
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Nov 1, 2007 15:57:21 EDT

A combination of the U.S. troop surge into Iraq, improvements in the size and quality of Iraqi Security Forces and a growing local rejection of al-Qaida has produced a five-month decline in the number of coalition troops killed in action and a four-month decline in overall violence in Iraq, the No. 2 U.S. ground commander said today.

Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, who spoke with Pentagon reporters Thursday via satellite link from Iraq, said the downward trend in violence represented “the longest continuous decline in attacks on record,” and illustrates how the addition of five U.S. brigade combat teams and support forces earlier this year have improved security in Iraq.

U.S. officials say the violence trends are the key indicator of improved security and a significant sign of progress toward the official U.S. goal of a “unified, democratic Iraq that can govern, defend and sustain itself.”

The number of overall attacks in October reported by Odierno is the lowest since sectarian violence spiked sharply upward in February 2006 after the bombing of the Samarra mosque, a holy Shi’ite shrine.

In the final week of October 2006, he said, violence-torn Anbar province suffered 303 overall attacks. “That number has been reduced to less than 30 this past week,” Odierno said.

In Baghdad, where most of the surge forces were sent, the total of 143 attacks during the last week of October 2006 fell to less than 100 attacks in the same week this year.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/11/military_odierno_iraqviolence_071101w/

not indiscriminately shooting up the civilian population at the moment? Ya think?

...death squads and mass exodus (how many Iraqi refugees are there in Syria?) will have a tendency to lessen the violence also, but these facts are curiously missing from the article.


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