Who to believe and what are the facts?

Yesterday: (AP) "Washington's top envoy in Iraq (Ryan Crocker) said on Thursday that increased U.S. troop strength had brought down violence....."

Today: (AP) "With five days to go before the end of July, an Associated Press tally showed that at least 1,759 Iraqis were killed in war-related violence through July 26, a more than 7 percent increase over the 1,640 who were reported killed in all of June."

Also: US casualties are down this month as Lt Gen. Odierno said yesterday and that is undoubtedly good news, although that reduction is just back to April's pre-surge levels. (And we're still talking about at least 67 US soldiers killed this month.)

And, In a less life threatening measurement,

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that Baghdad residents could count on only "an hour or two a day" of electricity. That's down from an average of five to six hours a day earlier this year.

But that piece of data has not been sent to lawmakers for months because the State Department, which prepares a weekly "status report" for Congress on conditions in Iraq, stopped estimating in May how many hours of electricity Baghdad residents typically receive each day.

But I think the kicker line is this,

The change, a State Department spokesman said, reflects a technical decision by reconstruction officials in Baghdad who are scaling back efforts to estimate electricity consumption as they wind down U.S. involvement in rebuilding Iraq's power grid.

The US is "winding down" efforts at rebuilding the electricity infrastructure? The Iraqis are just supposed to sit in the dark?

Later: While we're doing status reports,

Missing from Thursday's session of the Iraqi parliament were about half of the members, including the speaker, the former speaker and two former prime ministers.

The monthlong August vacation starts next week.