Empty Hospitals - In Iraq
Alert reader Neo sent this link in comments. Reuters - of all wire services - is reporting that hospital wards in Iraq are empty. There has been an extremely sharp drop in civilian casualties.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A row of beds lies empty in the emergency ward of Baghdad's Yarmouk Hospital. The morgue, which once overflowed with corpses, is barely a quarter full.
Doctors at the hospital, a barometer of bloodshed in the Iraqi capital, say there has been a sharp fall in victims of violence admitted during a seven-month security campaign.
Last month the fall was particularly dramatic, with 70 percent fewer bodies and half the number of wounded brought in compared to July, hospital director Haqi Ismail said.
"The major incidents, like explosions and car bombs, sometimes reached six or seven a day. Now it's more like one or two a week," he told Reuters.
The relative calm at the Yarmouk hospital lends weight to U.S. and Iraqi government assertions that a security campaign launched around Baghdad in February has achieved results.
In one emergency ward at the hospital, in a Sunni Muslim district of west Baghdad which has suffered disproportionately from sectarian conflict, just two patients were being treated. Neither showed signs of serious injury.
By all means, please read it all. This is very big news - so big that Reuters could not ignore it. It is not all rosy, of course. But this is a really good indicator that General Petraeus' strategy is working.
Other Links to this Post
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Public Secrets: from the files of the Irishspy — Tuesday, 18 September , 2007 @ 8:50 am
By Mwalimu Daudi, Tuesday, 18 September , 2007 @ 3:58 pm
You know how the rest of the MSM will spin this news (if they bother to pick up on it):
Iraqi Health Care System Failing