By Andrew L. Jaffee

I’m almost willing to believe pigs can fly:

… Fresh from a four-day visit to Iraq and Kuwait, John Murtha said: “I think the ’surge’ is working.” …

Why would Murtha think the surge is working? From the AP:

The number of Iraqis killed last month fell to 718, an Associated Press tally showed, the lowest monthly death toll since just before the 2006 bombing of a Shiite shrine provoked a vicious cycle of retaliatory sectarian violence. …

It was the third consecutive monthly decline in the death toll of Iraqi civilians and security forces since August, when a massive suicide bombing targeting minority Yazidis in northern Iraq helped push the figure to at least 1,956. …

The number of U.S. troop deaths also declined for the sixth consecutive month, with at least 37 recorded in November, according to an AP tally based on military figures. That was the lowest number since March 2006, when 31 American service members died. …