Clamping Down

This is the third report I have seen today that says the security situation is improving in Baghdad. Is it perfect? Hell, no. But is the violence level dropping in response to the increased presence of troops? Cautiously, the answer seems to be yes.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Violence in Baghdad has declined in the past two weeks and all but ended in some formerly deadly neighborhoods, the U.S. military said in a cautiously upbeat report on Tuesday on a major security clampdown in the city.

As Iraqis look to an anxious future, the court trying Saddam Hussein heard voices from the past — Kurdish villagers accused the ousted president of genocide in poison gas attacks. Another court detained a former minister in the first cabinet after the U.S. invasion as part of a probe into massive corruption.

A day after President George W. Bush said he was concerned about civil war and was not about to withdraw U.S. troops, the chief military spokesman in Iraq said he saw no sign of such a conflict but U.S. forces were focusing on breaking sectarian "death squads" from both Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim communities.

Twenty-two raids in the past week against such groups in the capital had led to 37 arrests, Major General William Caldwell told a news conference. He presented statistics showing a 16 percent drop in the daily average of attacks in Baghdad since August 7, at 21 compared to 25 in the preceding two months.

"What we have seen in August is a downturn," Caldwell said, two weeks after beefed up U.S. forces and thousands of Iraqi troops and police launched a new phase of what Iraqi and U.S. leaders have called a make-or-break operation to pacify Baghdad.

In three particularly violent areas where intensive raids to root out militants have been completed this month, life was returning to normal and attacks were rare, Caldwell said — a sentiment endorsed by a number of residents in the mainly Sunni areas of Ghazaliya and Amriya and the mixed district of Dora.

"There are positive things occurring and people are seeing it," Caldwell said. "This is not something that's going to happen overnight. But all the signs are very positive."

Centcom has an ongoing series of press releases that detail the progress. There actually has been quite a lot as much as the media wants to downplay it. If you're interested in actually reading some of the positive developments instead of the doom and gloom from the media go over to Centcom.

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1. The Real Ugly American.com » Blog Archive » Baghdad attacks slowing? — August 23, 2006 @ 4:19 am