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In October, US troop deaths declined for the fifth successive month to 39, the lowest such total this year and the seventh lowest in 56 months of war. And just one British Serviceman died last month, after Britain’s withdrawal to “overwatch” operations around Basra. The improvement has been such that David Miliband was able to boast on a trip to Washington last month that for the first time in recent years Iraq’s security had “not been top of the agenda” when the Foreign Secretary held talks with Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State.

He did, however, admit that their conversation focused on the growing crisis over the prospect of Turkish military operations in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

Although violence persists outside Baghdad, civilian casualties in the capital have declined significantly recently, with 317 civilians killed last month, according to the Interior Ministry. That represents a drop of more than 50 per cent from August, when 656 civilians were killed, and an even bigger reduction from May, when 1,070 died through violence. Although these figures are incomplete, the trends appear to be consistent with data gathered by news agencies on civilian casualties.

Since the surge in operations began in June of this year, the number of car bombs has fallen by 65 per cent and casualties from roadside bombs have fallen by 80 per cent.

Brigadier-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, said that the reduction in killings was evidence that the joint US-Iraqi security plan for Baghdad was working — but he emphasised that the battle was far from won.

“We keep on fighting to make Baghdad safer,” General Khalaf told The Times. “The army and the police are still attacked because the war has not finished yet. For the future I think after a few more months everything will be great and all the violence will end. I ask God and pray for that.”

Elsewhere across the American political system, the winds also appear to be shifting. Fevered Democratic plans earlier this year in Congress to halt funding for the war are now stalled.

And in the 2008 presidential race, the salience of Iraq as an issue has dropped along with the levels of violence, to be replaced by concerns over Iran and the prospect of a new American military intervention.

But just as no one can pinpoint a day when the toll of death and bloodshed halted all together, there remains confusion and disagreement over whether this undisputed decline in violence over recent weeks is a sign of peace in Iraq or simply a short-term lull.

The ultra-cautious US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, was asked this week at a press conference if the surge was working and if he was ready to say that the military was winning.

“I think those end up being loaded words,” he replied. “I think we have been very successful. We need to continue being successful.”

Saleh al-Mutlak, a secular Sunni who leads the Iraqi National Front for Dialogue, said: “It’s temporary because the United States cannot maintain this number of troops in the areas where they are in. And if they do so, there will be no normal life in these areas.”

The US military attributes the reduction in casualties to a number of factors, including the growing capability of the Iraqi security forces, a scheme to encourage ordinary people to join a neighbourhood-watch style volunteer force against the militants and a six-month ceasefire ordered in August by Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shia militia leader. The civilian death toll may also have receded because of the success of ethnic cleansing in Sunni and Shia neighbourhoods, while other Iraqis have fled the country and many rarely venture out of their homes.

Michael White, who compiles statistics on violence in Iraq for the independent website icasualties.org, said yesterday that there had been a substantial change in parts of Iraq “but I also think that this is a lull”. In Baghdad, for instance, he fears that al-Sadr is “keeping his powder dry for when the Americans pull out”.

Asked if there would be a day soon when nobody died in Iraq, he replied: “We’ve had low death toll days before and then a huge pile of bodies is discovered somewhere.

“I honestly don’t think violence will subside just yet.”

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