With Violence Down Baghdad Is Back Open to Business

The people are back out in the streets of Baghdad.
Violent deaths in Iraq are now below the violent death levels of South Africa.

People shop at the Shorja market in east Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Nov. 3, 2007. More than four months after U.S. forces completed a 30,000-strong force buildup, the death toll for both Iraqis and Americans has fallen dramatically for two months running, and, as if sensing a possible shift in the capital, Iraqis in mainly Shiite eastern Baghdad have returned to the streets in numbers not seen in months. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

It looks like the surge is working.
Violence reached new lows again in October.
MSNBC reported:

More than four months after U.S. forces completed a 30,000-strong force buildup, the death toll for both Iraqis and Americans has fallen dramatically for two months running.

U.S. commanders credit a new tactic of putting troops into neighborhood bases and of signing on disaffected former enemies as new allies in the fight against the most radical elements in both the Shiite and Sunni communities, especially al-Qaida in Iraq. Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr also has called a cease-fire, a move seen largely responsible for the drop in sectarian murders.

On Feb. 23, when the death toll was five, the foreshortened month would end with 1,801 Iraqis killed. While impossible to forecast what this month holds, Friday’s stunningly low figure follows an Iraqi toll of 905 last month. The number was 1,023 in September and 1,956 in August. The figures for U.S. military deaths followed the same downward trend: 84 in August; 65 in September; 39 last month.

Iraqi: 'Things are looking better now'
As if sensing a possible shift in the capital, Iraqis in mainly Shiite eastern Baghdad have returned to the streets in numbers not seen in months.

People gather at the Shorja street market in east Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Nov. 3, 2007. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)