I have noticed that since the new year there has been much fewer reports of our servicemen KIA or WIA in the sandbox. Is this a real decline since Iraq establisheda .gov thru the elections or a loss of interested by the liberal media?

I don't know, but with a son in Iraq I check the casualty reports on defenselink daily.  I have noticed a recent downtrend in casualties but this is based on my unscientific perceptions.  I can't tell you how much they are down, just that they are down.  Maybe its a seasonal thing and maybe it's a permanant positive trend (I hope).

A reduction in casualties isn't considered news by our "great" media. Besides they are too busy covering the casualty in Texas at the hands of the evil Cheney.

I pray that casualties are in fact down and that it's a result of success in stabilizing Iraq. I also pray that ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and the rest of the enemy media someday realize the failure in themselves that they seem to wish upon our brave troops.

TRW - thanks to your son for his service!!

IEDs account for the majority of combat casualties, to the tune of about 215 IED attempts per month.

Troops are almost certainly becoming more aware, and more cautious. Vehicles are getting better armor. Additionally, everyday we are killing more of them. The supply won't last forever.

That's one of my metrics for how well the war is going. If the press stops reporting about it, I assume it's going pretty well.

Quoted: A reduction in casualties isn't considered news by our "great" media. Besides they are too busy covering the casualty in Texas at the hands of the evil Cheney. I pray that casualties are in fact down and that it's a result of success in stabilizing Iraq. I also pray that ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and the rest of the enemy media someday realize the failure in themselves that they seem to wish upon our brave troops. TRW - thanks to your son for his service!!

The causality rate has remained steady for the last several months at about 2 deaths per day, this is lower that the daily average last year and lower that the daily average for the whole war. The number of wounded is significantly down.

This at the same time when bombings and IED attacks have shown a dramatic drop in number. Down about 45% from October.

It also appears that a slightly higher percentage of deaths are from non-hostile causes than occurred in the preceding 6 months. A few months ago the ratio was about 5 to 1 hostile to non-hostile deaths and now is around 3 to 1 hostile to non-hostile in the last couple of months.

It seems that the reason casualty rates have not fallen further is while there are much fewer IDE attacks the terrorist are more efficient on when and how they use them… and when a attack is successful it is far more likely to kill multiple Soldiers/Marines than in the past.

All this combined with lager sections of the Sunni’s turning on the foreign terrorist looks very hopeful.

The press has virtually ignored the news.

Quoted: That's one of my metrics for how well the war is going. If the press stops reporting about it, I assume it's going pretty well.

"You know it's sad but true".

Some guy from AZ called into rush today to say that the arizona star paper had cheney's ND on the front page for the 3rd day but the saddam tapes were on page 8.

God Bless our boys in the sand box....