- Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The number of insurgent attacks in Baghdad has dropped in recent weeks, and American forces are getting better at finding car bombs before they go off, a top U.S. general in Iraq said Wednesday.

[snip]

Chiarelli said that on average, for every car bomb that explodes in the capital, his troops find another one and defuse it. He refused to give details, but said his troops were getting better at finding insurgents' explosives.

[snip]

In the capital, Chiarelli said attacks were down since the U.S.-led invasion of Fallujah, an insurgent stronghold, that began on Nov. 8. He said he was pleased that Iraqis have been calling a tip line and paying attention to billboards around the city asking them to report weapons caches or suspicious activity.

"All I can tell you is that we've got billboards all over the city, and I take great joy in the fact that I see the insurgents trying to tear them down, and we put them back up," he said.

A one to one ratio for finding car bombs to car bombs detonating is not ideal, however it is remarkably better than the 1:5 ratio the military claimed close to two months ago in a press conference. There is still room for improvement, but I have no doubt the U.S. military and Coallition forces are doing their best to protect the Iraqi citizens.

Terrorists have changed directions within the past month to two months from targeting U.S. soldiers to targeting Iraqi military and Iraqi police. All along they have targeted Iraqi civilians however. Whether or not the fact terrorists have changed targets factored into Maj. Gen. Chiarelli's statement that attacks have gone down is not known.

Cross-posted at In the Bullpen

Posted by: Chad at 07:58 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 348 words, total size 2 kb.