We engage in more shameless cheerleading by pointing out Max Boot has updated & added much more detail to his report from Iraq:

Not the least of their achievement is that no Marine has been killed by hostile fire since May 1, when President Bush proclaimed "major hostilities" at an end. Almost 70 Army soldiers have been slain in that period. This success isn't a result of flooding south-central Iraq with soldiers. Mattis never deployed more than 8,000 Marines, along with some Army civil affairs, psychological operations, and military police units, to control an area the size of Missouri.
...
The Marine strategy was based on three principles. First, do no harm. That meant not alienating Iraqis by violating their religious or social customs. Women, for instance, should not be subject to intrusive searches. When talking to Iraqis, Marines were instructed to point their firearms away and take off their sunglasses. Above all, it meant using as little firepower as possible. As Mattis put it: "If someone needs shooting, shoot him. If someone doesn't need shooting, protect him."

Of course Jeff and others would rightly point out that just when the one chunk of US troops who seem to have a clue are making headway, they get pulled out and replaced by Bulgarians of unknown quality. I can only hope they, or at least their commanders, are being pulled out for re-location into other hotspots. If they're not it's one more step I'll take toward holding my nose and voting Democrat. No, really.