The Evolution of the War Since Bush's Speech

Since Bush's "Surge" speech there has been three major changes in the Iraq War.

1. The civilian population has been dying at a massively accelerated rate. It used to be that civilians died in small groups, five or ten at a time was a lot. Now, single attacks are killing scores at a time. The latest Baghdad attack has killed over 120. People are dying in huge clusters now.
   
2. The insurgents have begun to successfully attack helicopters, four choppers down in the past two weeks. Routinely, high ranking officers have traveled by air to avoid the roadside bombs. Just this year, at least two colonels, two majors, two captains, one lieutenant colonel, and four senior non-coms have been killed in attacks on helicopters. That is a significant number of senior officers that the insurgents have taken out. The helicopter attacks are succeeding in killing high value targets.
3. The Pentagon has reduced the number of servicemembers wounded in Iraq by the simple expediancy of changing the definition of "wounded." It could be an attempt to make the war look less disastrous, or it could be they are simply running out of Purple Heart medals.