Iraq Facts For Dummies

If it seems like too much 'work' to read the previous post on this, and you like pretty pictures... perhaps these 3 graphs will get through to you.
With much appreciation and thanks to Engram at Back Talk Blog.

First, let's define how you go about measuring "success".
John Murtha-"Are the incidents decreased? No. Have the civilian deaths gone down? No. Have the American deaths increased? Yes. That's the way you measure whether we're making progress."


Data from the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (not a rightwing group)

Month-to-month data can be noisy, so here is a similar chart with each bar now representing the average of the last 3 months:


And what was it John Murtha said was the other measure of success...?


Again, what was it John Murtha said just a few months ago?

"Are the incidents decreased?"
"Have the civilian deaths gone down?"
"Have the American deaths increased?"
"That's the way you measure whether we're making progress."

Indeed, that is how you measure progress (not by "political benchmarks"), and that's why even he is now forced to admit that the troop surge is working:

WASHINGTON — No. 2 House Republican Roy Blunt challenged Democrats on Friday to pass a $50 billion war spending package, pouncing on new remarks by Democratic Rep. John Murtha who said, "I think the surge is working."

Gee, I wonder where he got a crazy idea like that?
Now maybe you would like to read the post below and get "the rest of the story"... or just stay in denial, your choice.