McCain's tour of a Baghdad market has highlighted the attempts by conservatives to manipulate public opinion on whether the surge is working. McCain's pretense was exposed. But the larger question remains of whether the surge is working--and whether there is a way to gauge what is happening without resorting to anecdotal evidence, hunches and opinion. Looking at the numbers of deaths, as gruesome as it may be, is one objective measure.
Here is the data on deaths in Iraq:
Deaths of U.S. Troops
2007 2006
Jan 83 62
Feb 80 55
Mar 81 31
Deaths of Iraqi civilians and military
2007 2006
Jan 1802 779
Feb 1531 846
Mar 1889 1092
By the numbers, the surge is not working. The deaths have not decreased this year since the surge has been implemented. And the deaths are at very high levels when compared to a year ago.
Conservatives will argue that deaths and assassinations inside Bagdad are down. Yet, the overall death count is not. At best, this is the whack-a-mole effect: while the troops go in Baghdad, the civil war rages elsewhere. And when the troops leave Baghdad, or go elsewhere in Iraq to quell the civil war, the violence will return to Baghdad. Moreover, the decrease in Baghdad violence is apparently quite slight.....conservatives are not quantifying the decrease--so it is apparently another faith-based analysis.