Gauging the Media's Civil War in Iraq

Engram at Best of the Fray (the blog, not the Slate forum) has been doing some research to substantiate the increasing carnage in the mainstream media declared civil war in Iraq:

To gauge the progress of the newly declared civil war in Iraq, I computed some relevant statistics from the latest report by the Brookings Institution (pdf). The statistics I computed compare the last three months of 2005 (prior to the onset of "civil war") with the first 3 months of 2006 (a period during which the media declared that Iraq's civil war had finally begun).

US troop fatalities:

Last 3 months of 2005: 233
First 3 months of 2006: 152 (down 35%)

US troops wounded:

Last 3 months of 2005: 1492
First 3 months of 2006: 1092 (down 27%)

Iraqi military and police fatalities:

Last 3 months of 2005: 584
First 3 months of 2006: 537 (down 8%)

Iraqi civilian fatalities (upper estimate):

Last 3 months of 2005: 2003
First 3 months of 2006: 2058 (up 2.7%)

Also posted at The Jawa Report and Vince Aut Morire.