Baghdad Safer than NYC

The New York Post is reporting that Baghdad now has a lower per capita murder rate than New York, Chicago, LA, and Washington DC.

The newest numbers, released by the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, reveal that over the past three months, murders and other crimes in Baghdad are decreasing dramatically and that in the month of October, there were fewer murders per capita there than the Big Apple, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

The Bush administration and outside experts are touting these new figures as a sign that, eight months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, major progress is starting to be made in the oft-criticized effort by the United States and coalition partners to restore order and rebuild Iraq.

“If these numbers are accurate, they show that the systems we put in place four months ago to develop a police force based on the principles of a free and democratic society are starting to work,” said former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who traveled to Iraq to oversee the rebuilding of the police force.

“It shows that the enforcement is working. It shows that the coordination between the Iraqi police and the U.S. military is working. It shows that having an Iraqi face out there standing up is working. The more you stand up, the more these crime numbers are going to go down,” Kerik said.

UPDATE: Apparently the numbers in the calculations above are highly suspect. Oh well… you know what they say… if something sounds too good to be true…