The press isn't interested in the drop in sectarian violence. They'll look around until they find a place where things aren't going as well. Or rework numbers until it looks like that.

The article points out that contractor casualties increase with increased military activity, which indicates that an increase during a surge is not exactly a big surprise. The article also carefully avoids mentioning how many contractors are in Iraq now compared to a year ago, or two years ago, which might put a different light on the statistics on a per-capita basis. Solid numbers are not easy to come by, but I've seen recent numbers as high as 120,000. In 2005, this was around 30,000.