The Battle for Baghdad

This is from Mercury News:

``The Battle for Baghdad will go a long ways toward determining the future of Iraq and the future of the Middle East,'' said Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, answering questions via e-mail. ``The United States simply cannot achieve its goals of a democratic, stable and secure Iraq if the unacceptable levels of violence that we had in Baghdad in recent months continue.''
About 8,000 additional U.S. soldiers have been in Baghdad since early August, accompanied by 3,000 Iraqi soldiers.
Despite an increase in violence in Baghdad and elsewhere in the past three days, U.S. officials say the early results of the Baghdad offensive seem encouraging. The capital's homicide rate, which soared to a high of more than 1,800 killings in July, appears to have plummeted by more than half in recent weeks, the U.S. military says.

Is still rough going, but there's still hope the situastion will improve.