"We've still got a distance to go but I think lower casualty rates are a reflection of some real progress," Gates told reporters in Singapore. "The key will be to continue to sustain the progress we have seen."
02 June 2008: Newsroom America
U.S. troop deaths in Iraq hit an all-time low last month as oil production hit a post-war high, officials said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, along with Iraq's oil minister, credited better overall security for the two milestones.
"We've still got a distance to go but I think lower casualty rates are a reflection of some real progress," Gates told reporters in Singapore. "The key will be to continue to sustain the progress we have seen."
U.S. military commanders still warn the improved security situation is tenuous and reversible. But while grieving the loss of even a single soldier, commanders said only 19 soldiers died in May, the lowest monthly death toll in the five-year-old war.
In an interview with Reuters, meanwhile, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said improved security help Iraq - with the world's third-largest oil reserves - boost production to 2.5 million barrels per day.
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