Reporting from Baghdad -- With U.S. military fatalities in Afghanistan at all-time highs, and terrorist attacks like last week's spectacular bombing against government ministries still common in Iraq, it's easy to overlook one important face: U.S. combat deaths in Iraq are at their lowest level since the March 2003 invasion.

In October, there were two U.S. combat-related fatalities in Iraq, according to the website Globalsecurity.org. That continues a trend that began last year, and accelerated with the departure of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities in June 30 of this year.

According to icasualties.org, another excellent source of data about U.S. and coalition casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were four U.S. combat casualties each in August and September, and five in July.

Publicly available data sources differ a little bit, so we hesitate to be categorical about this, but October 2009 just may have been the safest month for American troops since the invasion, 6 1/2 years ago. (It's important to remember that non-combat operations can be dangerous, too. There were more non-combat deaths in October, from vehicle accidents and other causes, than combat ones.

One marked difference from my last, very brief, visits to Iraq in 2004 and 2006 is the absence of a visible U.S. military presence on Iraq's streets. They've been replaced by Iraqi security forces, mostly dressed in crisp new uniforms, whose performance is under stepped-up criticism since the October 25 bombing which killed 155 Iraqi civilians.

Thanks to that bombing, and other attacks, the trend for Iraqi civilians is not so good. According to this story today from Reuters, there were 343 Iraqi civilian deaths from political violence in October, a reversal from the downward trend of recent months.

(McClatchy special correspondent Mohammed al Dulaimy contributed).