Just two weeks ago Kirk Johnson was working in Baghdad for Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Today he joined Heritage’s Jim Phillips at our weekly Conservative Bloggers’ Briefing to talk about his former boss’ testimony on Capitol Hill and to share some of his own experiences in Iraq.

Johnson, a visiting fellow at Heritage, was the chief statistician at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. If anyone is qualified to discuss whether the “surge” is working, it’s him. In a paper released yesterday, Johnson writes about civilian casualty rates and why they’re an important measure of success in Iraq. He cites these three issues as the most important:

1. The “surge” has been especially effective in reducing civilian casualties in Baghdad, although less so in the rest of Iraq.

2. Sectarian casualties are only a fraction of total civilian casualties, and such numbers lack meaning in ethnically or religiously homogeneous communities.

3. Violence statistics collected by the military should be viewed as a lower-bound estimate because they tend to miss smaller incidents.

He followed up that report with this one today on what should happen after Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus leave Washington. Kirk explains in this YouTube video why a precipitous withdrawal would be disastrous for the region.

UPDATE — 5:58 p.m.: I uploaded a couple of videos from today’s bloggers’ meeting. The first one features Kirk talking about why the surge has been successful. The second on includes his comments on Iraq’s future and Iran’s meddling.