Is the War Over?

Good news from the home front this week -- the city of Philadelphia's murder rate to a three-year low. Yee-ha. I love good news.

Oh yeah, and by the way, 20 percent fewer Americans were murdered last month in the entire country of Iraq -- 19 -- than were murdered in the city of brotherly love, which saw 24 killings. In fact, May was the least deadly month American troops since the invasion in 2003. It's likely that if they sent every one of the 155,000 Americans in Iraq home next month, you'd have more killed in car crashes and training accidents next month. In fact, at the height of the Clinton Administration, the United States military saw an average of 81 dead per month, and we weren't even at war with anybody.

A month ago Basra was on fire, as was Sadr City. But those flames may have signalled the last big fight for what was left of the organized Anti-Iraqi militias. Today, those neighborhoods are open for business and their citizens are more optimistic than they've been in years.

Nobody in the top brass going to stick their neck out and say it, but the U.S. military in Iraq is, in my opinion, engaged in what we used to call "mopping up exercises." Now that they've trained more than half a million Iraqi soldiers and police, decimated al-Qaeda, and routed the Mahdi Army, they are quickly finding that they've worked themselves out of a job.

Don't get me wrong -- there is still lots to be done in Iraq. But there isn't a lot more FIGHTING to be done there. At least not by our soldiers. None that I've talked to want to come home before they've seen their victory nailed down securely, but if I had to guess, I'd say the air in Baghdad smells like springtime.

Chuck Holton
www.livefire.us