American military does not allow a pile of dead Iraqis to dampen their positive spin on the surge.

In Baghdad, on the surface the overt violence appears to have diminished. There are fewer loud explosions. But, the city is now being partitioned by sectarian hatred and fear; by concrete walls and barbed wire. Claims that the US military strategy is paving the way for a stable society bear little resemblance to the reality on the ground.

The US is accused of manipulating figures relating to violence to fit their case, ignoring evidence which shows that the influx of 30,000 troops has done little to end the continuing bloodshed.

The death of Omar al-Husseini in the Huriya district of Baghdad is one of many which does not even figure in the American reckoning. His killers, masked and carrying guns, dragged him away as his mother wept and his father pleaded for mercy. That was the last time they saw their son alive. Three weeks later they heard that he had been killed.

Omar was 20. His killers were Shia, he was a Sunni, the victim of a spree of murders which has ethnically cleansed neighbourhoods through the city. But both the US military and the Iraqi police have told his parents that as far as they are concerned the abduction and killings were purely criminal acts. This means, statistically, that his death is not included by the US in the calculations for sectarian killings produced yesterday.

Allowing the ethnic cleansing to continue unabated just allows the American military in the future to say that there is less violence. Fewer people to kill means fewer victims.

So the Iraqis either run to neighborhoods where their religion is in control, leave the country, or face certain death. And this is "progress".

And Petraeus gives the Republicans just enough political cover to keep our young men and women dying in this quagmire for months, and years to come.

We must keep the pressure on Congress and the Senate and let them know that the Petraeus dog and pony show did not fool us. We know that we are being lied to and we want our soldiers home, now!