Last Throes

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Insurgent attacks in the last six months have killed more than 8,000 Iraqi civilians, police and troops, according to Iraq's interior minister.

Meanwhile Thursday, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said the Iraqi insurgency had probably reached its "high water mark" over the past 12 months.

In an interview with CNN, Iraqi Interior Minister Baqir Jabbur said "terrorists" had killed 8,175 people and wounded another 12,000 since January 2005.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, there have been 307 U.S. fatalities in combat during the same period.

Jabbur said he was optimistic about the recent strides made by Iraqi security forces and predicted victory in the war against insurgents.

"We have a plan, and I think we need some months and we can get results ... We are surrounding the insurgency," he said.

Unofficial estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths during the Iraq war range from about 22,000 -- according to the Web site iraqbodycount.net -- to about 100,000 -- from an independent survey reported in The Washington Post. The Pentagon does not give numbers for civilian deaths in Iraq.

Jabbur said he believed the U.S. has enough troops deployed in Iraq. He said Wednesday the focus needed to remain on the training of more Iraqi troops and police.

Jabbur said the Iraqi-led counterinsurgency operation dubbed "Operation Lightning" has so far yielded 1,500 arrests of suspected insurgents around Baghdad. Of those, 500 have been released, Interior Ministry officials said.

He said Iraqi and American troops were poised to start a second phase of the operation, extending the reach of the campaign to a 60-kilometer (38-mile) radius around Baghdad.

Jabbur's office is in charge of Iraq's police force, which he said now numbers about 67,000.

The ministry hopes to recruit a total of 200,000, but financial restraints are complicating efforts to outfit them with weapons and equipment, he said.