A picture is worth a thousand words
Bill Roggio on the Fourth Rail has the AAR from the recent battle at Tal-Afar where a mixed US-Iraqi Division size offensive took down the largest terrorist encampment since Falljujah. Wretchard at the Belmont Club carries a similar AAR from Colonel Brown in Mosul. Both stories tell of an enemy increasingly relying on lower quality, younger recruits with little experience who are no more than cannon fodder.
Wretchard follows up with a post that leads to a discussion of US Casualties.
A picture is worth a thousand words. So I used data from the Strategy Page on US Casualties and produced this graph. I chose a polynomial 4th order trend line.
It would be nice to have data on civillian casualties, car bombs, insurgents captured, killed, etc as well to put on this graph. And I sure Centcom has all kinds of graphics that would put this to shame.
But I think it speaks for itself. Either resources are being held in abeyance for a big surge during the election, or the terrorists in Iraq have shot their wad.