He is comparing the Iraq to large cities, not the US as a whole. So his point stands.
Name a major U.S. city that has a murder rate 11 times the national average, given the fact that three-quarters of the U.S. population lives in major metro areas. Fourteen thousand Iraqis died from political violence in 2006 in a country of 26.7 million people. In 2005, there were 14,600 murders in the United States, whose population was 296.4 million. To replicate the Iraqi death rate, for example, the New York metro area would have to have 9,800 murders a year. With approximately half of the metro area's population, As of December 24, 2006, there were 579 murders in New York City year to date.