We have refrained from trying to "score" the surge, for a number of reasons. But Blog of the Week Jules Crittenden has a great roundup of the news from Iraq, and it's mostly good:

Reuters loads us up on the Good News out of Iraq: too many al-Qaeda dead to count in a village in Anbar, where Iraqi security forces just kept killing them all day. US and Iraqi forces raiding into Sadr City, just messing around right now, a death squad leader here, a death squad leader there, gearing up for the big push. And the Iraqi Foreign Minister says 1,000 former Iraqi Army officers are coming back, a “sign of reconciliation.”

It’s gotta be good news when it gets so quiet in Baghdad they are forced to admit it and make news out of it.

As this Associated Press article acknowledges, civilian killings in Baghdad are way down:

The Baghdad security operation has been under way less than three weeks, but it has already registered a success: a sharp drop in the number of bullet-riddled bodies found in the streets - victims of sectarian death squads.

The number of bodies found so far this month in Baghdad - most of them shot and showing signs of torture - has dropped by nearly 50 percent to 494 as of Monday night, compared with 954 in January and 1,222 in December, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.

Many questions remain, but it seems fair to say, so far, so good.

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Posted by John at 09:18 AM  |    |