Billmon: What a "Secure" Province Looks Like

A standard riff at the modern version of the 5 o'clock follies -- military press briefings in Baghdad or at the Pentagon -- is that the insurgency in Iraq is limited to "only" four provinces. I say "only" because one of them (Anbar) is the size of North Carolina, while two of the others contain Baghdad and Mosul, the country's largest and third-largest cities.

The rest of Iraq, we are told, is a peaceful oasis of tranquility and harmony -- save for the stay riot, suicide bombing, death squad mass execution and/or British jail break operation. Ergo, the war is being won.

But Tom Lasseter, the Knight-Ridder reporter who's made something of a gig for himself pointing out the gap between fantasy at the top and reality on the ground -- basically by letting the guys actually fighting the war tell their own stories -- has done it again. He recently filed this report from the province of Diyala, which lies to the east of Baghdad, well outside the Sunni Triange:

Commanders for the 3rd Infantry Division in Diyala said the number of attacks there had dropped from about a dozen a day last year to seven. Roadside bombs, they said, have decreased by a third. The latter trend, though, hasn't held up this month. In September 2004 there were 72 roadside bombs detonated or found, but 106 this month.

"They say attacks are down. Well, no [shit]," [Staff Sgt. Donnie] Hendricks said. "We're not patrolling where the bad guys are."