Reads the headline on this
balanced Reuters piece. The article quotes U.S. spokesman Major Rick Lynch who is
predicting an easing of sectarian violence after Iraq's long awaited unity government is finally formed.
Attacks on civilians had jumped 90 percent across Iraq since a Shiite shrine was bombed in February, but "ethno-sectarian" bloodshed had more than halved in Baghdad in the past week, U.S. spokesman Major General Rick Lynch told a news conference. [emphasis mine]
Now, I'm no math whiz, but isn't that still something like a 45% increase in violence since the elections in December?
The major continues...
"We are not seeing widespread militia operations across Iraq. We are not seeing widespread movement of displaced personnel," he said. "So we do not see us moving towards a civil war in Iraq. In fact we see us moving away from it."
Ahh, the good news is almost too much to contain. At last it's broken through the media filter... or, has it?
From Juan Cole:
AP reports Iraq violence Tues-Weds. There were major car bombings in Baghdad, and some 15 bodies showed up dead there and in Karbala. There were also deaths near Baqubah and in Kirkuk. AP counted 31 dead altogether.
Al-Zaman also reports a bombing in Fallujah.
The sister of new Iraqi vice president Tariq al-Hashimi, Maysoon, has been killed in a drive-by shooting. His brother, Mahmoud, was killed two seeks ago. Al-Hashimi is a Sunni Arab from the fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front, and one of two vice-presidents. The Sunni Arab guerrilla movement is notorious for viciously punishing what it sees as "collaborators" with the new regime. Since al-Hashimi is in the protected "Green Zone," they had to try to get at him through his familiy.
Oh yeah, and, by the way, they were most likely murdered by Sunni guerrillas, not Bush's favorite bogeyman, al-Zarqawi as Lynch suggests in the Reuters piece.
The guerrillas also killed 3 other "collaborators."
I have been complaining for years now about this allegation that US and Iraqi officials make that the problems are "only in 4 provinces." I say they are in 7 or 8, and they are among the more populous provinces in Iraq. Now the GAO agrees with me.
Iraqi officials charge that 90 women become widows every day. 15 policemen alone die each day, according to this report. There are some 300,000 widoes in Iraq, and their situation is deteriorating because of the poor economy.
The 90 husbands dying per day presumably includes deaths from natural causes. But the police are mentioned as dying specifically from guerrilla violence. If 15 policemen a day really are being killed, a) we're not hearing about it in the press and b) that is 5400 a year! By David Singer's definition, you only need 1000 deaths a year among government forces to qualify for having a civil war. [emphasis mine]
Sound grim? Those are just Juan's postings from today.