by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math
Via Blackfive, an Air Force general states that the use of air power in Iraq is declining. AFP quotes Major General Eddington: "For the last three to four weeks, we saw a significant decrease of our interventions". But just two weeks ago, USA Today reported that the numbebr of air strikes has increased four times in the past year; if Eddington is just comparing numbers from September and October to those from earlier months in 2007, then it doesn't really demonstrate that there's been any progress. Likewise, a drop to late 2003-levels of close air support would be real progress. Once again we find ourselves lacking enough data to know the whole story.
Elsewhere the (pro-war) Brookings Iraq index shows a few bright-ish spots in the Iraq economy, and not just in new cell phone subscribers. Electricty production has stayed above pre-war levels for several months for the half of the country that doesn't live in Baghdad. Oil production is just a shade below pre-war estimates. And the currency has appreciated (see the State Department update), though that may be more a sign of the falling dollar than anything else.
Just to clarify that I haven't joined O'Hanlon on the dark side, this all means that things in Iraq are still really bad. Fifty thousand people fled their homes in September ... and that was a "good" month. There's a good chance that violence is down because most of Iraq is segregated. And it's not clear how much (or how little) room for improvement there is. But this shouldn't blind us to the various measurements that show life in Iraq is "less bad" than it has been in a long time.
—signed, ,not Ezra Klein
