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Excuse me. You were the one who said the numbers were trending down. To say that the past has “absolutely no resemblance or relevance to what is going on now”, is incorrect; today’s decisions are a consequence of yesterday’s actions. That said, I still do not see how you can support that statement that there is a downward trend. Comparing months from 06 and 07, May 07 had 1.8x more deaths, June had 1.7x, and July had 1.9x as many. Hardly a down trend.

The surge began in May: 121 deaths. June: 98 deaths. July: 71 deaths. 121 to 98 to 71. I believe 98 is 81% of 121 and 71 is 58.7% of 121 and if that is not a “down” trend, I don’t know what is. You cannot compare 2006 casualties to those in 2007 because the operational reality of this year is utterly different than that of last year. We have more troops, the Iraqis are better trained, we have the assistance of tribal leaders where we had none last year, the government is stronger, the insurgents are weaker and have fewer places to hide. And that is why the number of US deaths are down in the past three months. It may be hard to accept, but for right now, we have the upper hand.