Telephone land line subscribers are also up, from a prewar total of 833,000 to 1.3 million today, according to statistics collected by the Associated Press.

The number of Iraqis who have access to drinkable water and to sewerage has nearly doubled.

Where households once had to make do with four to eight hours of electricity a day, the national average is over 14 hours a day.

The Internet was virtually unknown in the Saddam Hussein era. Only an estimated 4,500 Iraqi users existed in 2003, according to the Brookings Institution.

But that soared to 230,000 in January 2007 and to 688,410 in the most recent figures.

Casualties among Iraqi civilians and security forces last month dropped to their second-lowest level in nearly four years with 283 deaths linked to war-related violence.

The deadliest month for Iraqi civilians and security forces, according to the AP count, was December 2006 with 2,309 killed.

posted by Gateway Pundit