<p>Look again.</p>
<p>From the first article-</p>
<p>Today, Iraq is quieter, a turn that most experts attribute to the increase in troop strength and a renunciation of violence by U.S.-paid Sunni militias and rogue Shiite groups. Just eight American troops were killed in action in Iraq in July, the lowest level since the war began, and just 12 were killed in August.**</p>
<p>And regarding the second article-</p>
<p>No one is denying that the Iraqi forces have shown significant progress. The problem was that we had to train/equip them first, which we couldn’t do adequately before the surge because those troops were tied up trying to reduce the awful amount of violence that existed. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that once we infused 30,000 troops into Baghdad, Iraq became much more stable. Were there other factors? Of course. But we had been trying to train the Iraqis for years, and we had been working on diplomatic measures for years. Neither one experienced success until the surge happened.</p>