A senior U.S. Administration  official briefed reporters today about the situation in Iraq and applied a spin heavier than any I've heard in Baghdad for a long time. True, security is much better in Iraq today than it was several months ago but this official went beyond what even military leaders would claim. In the meeting, held on the usual (but irritating) diplomatic ground rules that he/she not be identified by name, a reporter asked about the Iraqi government's ability to take advantage of the recent "lull in violence." The official jumped on the phrasing.

"This is not a, quote, lull in violence," the official insisted. "It is a steady decline, which one could track, plot on a graf, which I know  [ military spokesman]  Kevin Bergner has and you've probably seen, starting in December 2006 and projecting in virtually a straight, leveled averaged line down to this week in Iraq."

The official didn't stop there: "That's not a lull. That is a continuous decline in every metric of violence. Where spikes have occurred, those spikes have been related to developments on the ground, often to security advances or, in the negative sense, to a particularly spectacular Al Qaeda attacks. But the trend line has been, based on the plots I've seen, unaffected by that. It ain't a lull. It is a progressive decline that is now some 17 months in duration."