Back in September, when General David Petraeus reported that the surge in U.S. troops had improved the security situation in Iraq, the big three broadcast networks were openly skeptical.

"Insurgent attacks are down from 170 in January to 120 in August," ABC's Terry McCarthy noted on the September 9 World News Sunday, the day before Petraeus testified before Congress. "But that is still four attacks a day, on average. Iraq remains a very violent place....Life in central Iraq is still deadly dangerous."

“There is a noticeable trend under way. A growing stream of Iraqis who left to escape the killing, many of them going to Syria, now reversing their migration,” anchor Brian Williams highlighted Tuesday evening as the NBC Nightly News became the first broadcast network evening newscast to air a full report on the trend.

From Baghdad, reporter Tom Aspell showcased a mother who exclaimed: “I'm so excited” and “I can't wait to get back.” Aspell explained: “Though safer, life in Syria turned out to be hard. $300 a month rent and food for the family of seven wiped out their savings. So when the Iraqi government offered free bus tickets to Baghdad, today's opportunity was too good to miss.” Adding the caveat that a safer Iraq is not the main motivator, Aspell noted: “A recent UN survey at registration centers found most Iraqi refugees are returning home not because Iraq is any safer, but because they're running out of money, and Syria is clamping down on visas.” Aspell, however, acknowledged upbeat trends: “Refugees coming back to Baghdad are going to see a lot of changes. There are more people in the streets, shops are open and traffic everywhere.” Though Aspell pointed out how “it is still a dangerous city. There are kidnappings, shootings and bomb blasts every day,” another mother, nonetheless, decided: “Thank God we returned and found the situation better than when we left.”

Finally catching up with ABC and NBC, the night before Thanksgiving the CBS Evening News turned to chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan for a look at how conditions are improving in Iraq. But the story from Logan, who just over a month ago insisted that “we're doing extremely badly,” was more cynical and foreboding than more upbeat reports aired Thanksgiving night on ABC and NBC when CBS's newscast was bumped for football.

Fill-in anchor Russ Mitchell noted “some signs perhaps that conditions are improving. Nationwide, the U.S. military says terror attacks have fallen 55 percent since the summer.” Logan began with how “the sounds of celebration echo on the streets of Baghdad's deadly Adamiyah neighborhood for the first time since the U.S. invasion,” but in explaining that “the U.S. now fights alongside their old Sunni enemy” she said the U.S. “calls them volunteers” while “some people call them America's militia.” Explaining how local Sunni women are helping the U.S., Logan stressed how “it's so dangerous to be seen working for the U.S. that many of these women hide their identity cards.” Logan ominously warned: “The U.S. can't keep paying and protecting the Sunni volunteers forever. And if it doesn't transition into the Iraqi police, and the Iraqi government doesn't take it on, that's the danger....A danger that could send the Sunnis back to war, this time with nothing left to lose.”

Three weeks after ABC's World News aired the first of three stories then and since about significant declines in violence and improving living conditions in Iraq, NBC Nightly News caught up Wednesday night as anchor Brian Williams acknowledged: “We are all hearing more and more these days about a significant drop in violence and deaths in Iraq, even though 2007 some time ago became the bloodiest year of the war, yet for U.S. forces these new stats show a different trend.”

From Iraq, reporter Tom Aspell illustrated how life has improved:

A few months ago, Ali Hamid could not have sold balloons here on Jadriyah Street. He might have been kidnaped or killed. A few blocks away, Azar Habud might have been shot for giving Western-style haircuts in his barbershop. And nearby, Mohammed Hassan's ice cream shop is still busy, even though it was bombed twice in April, killing nine customers. Back then, explosions were a horrifying part of everyday life. Now, the U.S. military says rocket and mortar attacks in Iraq have dropped sharply in the last few months from 1,000 in June to fewer than 400 in October. And so have civilian deaths.