Iraq Watch

This segment of an LA Times article struck me as incredibly tragic, but informative about post-surge Iraq:

Five U.S. soldiers were killed today in a truck bombing in northern Iraq. It was the deadliest attack against American forces in Iraq in more than a year.

This is obviously a "non-leading indicator" (as Megan McArdle would put it) but I think it is illustrative of the relative calm that has taken hold over what was once a raging inferno of death.