NPRs Guy Raz woke we up this morning with this sobering piece of reporting. I'd highly recommend readers listen to or read this and consider it as we draw closer to Bush's report and Petraeus and Crocker's testimony on the "progress" of Bush's escalation in Iraq.

Here's a sample:

Here's a few statistics that military officials have cited in the past few days.

From Gen. Richard Sherlock: "Overall violence in Iraq has continued to decline and is at the lowest level since June 2006."

From Gen. Kevin Bergner: "On a national level, sectarian deaths are about half of what they where in December of 2006."

And from Gen. Ray Odierno: "Total attacks are on a monthlong decline and are at their lowest levels since August of 2006."

And here's how those statistic translate into political rhetoric.

From South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham: "Well, the surge has worked; it's provided a level of security I haven't seen."

And from President Bush: "Anbar is a huge province. It was written off as lost. It is now one of the safest places in Iraq."

But other numbers tell a different story.

This year, Anbar is actually the second-deadliest place for U.S. troops in Iraq. Baghdad is the deadliest.

See how that works, watch for it... Republicans are desperate.
(This was post 1,001 !!)

Labels: benchmarks, Crocker, foreign policy, Iraq, Odierno, Petraeus, surge