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WITH Gen. David Petraeus returning to Capitol Hill tomorrow, I asked a senior Coalition officer in Baghdad late last week what key trends he sees in Iraq. I suspect my friend's views resemble those of the general, so I'll let him speak for himself:
"Overall, civilian deaths remain substantially below those at the height of the sectarian violence. Security incidents were [down to] levels not seen since early 2005. Thanks to help from local civilians [in] former al-Qaeda-in-Iraq safe havens, we've found more arms caches so far this year than were found in all of 2006."
My old comrade went on to lay out the beating that al Qaeda's getting up in Mosul
That's encouraging. I've heard, not through as good sources, that AQ in Iraq is about finished and the main problem now is breaking the pro-Iranian militias. Does that square with what you are hearing?