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No, it is entirely accurate. Crime is higher in US cities than in the US as a whole, of course. The rate in Iraq is above that for the US as a whole, by a factor of 2-3. But large US cities are more violent than the country as a whole, by a factor at least as large.

I ran the numbers once I the relative chances of violent death of a typical US male age 18 to 40. Those in the military, or just in the US. Basically the same. Those actually in Iraq, somewhat higher than the US average, and comparable to a US male in that age group in a large city with a crime problem e.g. Detroit or DC. Whole military is not that bad because lots aren't serving in Iraq etc. Chances of wounding were higher in Iraq, though.

If a US statistician tried to prove the US were at war by fatalities alone, he could not do it, and get the paper published in a peer reviewed journal. (Their standards of statistical significance would reject). Our losses in Iraq are so low they are basically at background. They can't go to zero - men do not become immortal -because- they are shipped to a -combat- zone.

There is no defeat in Iraq and never was. It is mostly media guff. There are enough Americans being wounded that we'd much rather have Iraqis take over the job of their own security.

Two other points of historical comparison. When Germany conquered France in about one month, it was considered a shockingly cheap and clear victory, revolutionizing people's expectations, "lightening war". The Germans lost 25 times as many KIA in that month as we have in 3 years in Iraq. (They still faced resistence fighters 4 years later, but nobody pretended they hadn't won, until US and British forces kicked them out again).

Second, because of the recent anniversary of the end of WW II, I happened to come across a figure for Russian losses in just the last 3 weeks of the war, in their victorious offensives into Berlin and Prague. They lost 93,000 KIA in just those 3 weeks. Winning. We haven't lost 3,000 in 3 years in Iraq. The rate is lower by a factor of 1600.