**GAO-07-1048R**                      Published: Sep 28, 2007. Publicly Released: Sep 28, 2007.                  

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## Highlights

In January 2007, the President stated that the high levels of violence in Iraq had overwhelmed the political gains that the Iraqis had made and required a new U.S. strategy for stabilizing the country. The new strategy recognized that until the Iraqi people have a basic measure of security, they would not be able to make significant and sustainable political and economic progress. To help Iraqi leaders provide security for their population, the United States deployed about 30,000 additional troops to Iraq during the spring of 2007, bringing the total number of U.S. military personnel up to about 160,000 as of mid-June 2007. Enemy-initiated attacks data are a key indicator of progress in improving Iraq's security situation, an important condition that, according to the administration, must be met before the United States can reduce its military presence in Iraq. While attacks data alone may not provide a complete picture of Iraq's security situation, Department of Defense (DOD) and Multinational Force-Iraq (MNF-I) officials state that the data provide a reasonably sound depiction of general security trends in the country. Since 2004, we have periodically provided this information to Congress in classified and unclassified briefings, reports, and testimonies. In response to GAO's requests, various DOD components--most recently the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)--have assisted GAO in publicly reporting trends in the security situation by declassifying the attacks data on a monthly basis. In our report on the status of the achievement of Iraqi benchmarks, we provided attacks data through July 31, 2007.2 This report provides data through August 31, 2007.

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## Topics

International Affairs

Congressional oversightCongressional powersDefense operationsGovernment information disseminationIraq War and reconstructionMilitary forcesMilitary operationsNational defense operationsGovernment reformInternational relations