Death, injury, illness toll at 10,000 for U.S. in Iraq

By Roger Roy
The Orlando Sentinel

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ORLANDO, Fla. — About 10,000 U.S. troops have been killed, wounded, injured or become ill enough to require evacuation from Iraq since the United States invaded in March, the equivalent of almost one Army division, according to the Pentagon.

Unlike the more than 2,800 U.S. fighting men and women killed or wounded in combat in Iraq, the numbers of noncombat injured and sick have been more difficult to track, leading critics to accuse the military of underreporting casualty numbers.

According to the military, 2,401 U.S. troops were listed as wounded in action in Iraq since the war began in March. At least 298 more have died. Accidents have accounted for an additional 136 deaths. Those figures were updated through yesterday. The numbers of sick or noncombat wounded provided by the military — which pushes the total to about 10,000 — include figures only through Oct. 30, however.

"I don't think even that is the whole story," said Nancy Lessin, of Boston, the mother of an Iraq war veteran and co-founder of Military Families Speak Out, a group opposed to the war in Iraq.

"We really think there's an effort to hide the true cost (of the Iraq war) in life, limb and the mental health of our soldiers," Lessin said. "There's a larger picture here of really trying to hide and obfuscate what's going on, and the wounded and injured are part of it."

Virginia Stephanakis, a spokeswoman for the Army surgeon general, said there has been no effort to manipulate the casualty statistics. "I can reassure you that these are the best figures we have," Stephanakis said. "We're certainly not playing with the numbers or trying to downplay them."

Stephanakis said 2,464 troops have suffered nonbattle injuries, which would include everything from accidental gunshot wounds to broken bones from vehicle accidents. And 4,397 troops have been evacuated from Iraq to U.S. military hospitals — usually in Germany — for treatment of medical problems not related to wounds or injuries.

They include 290 treated for urological problems such as kidney stones — thought by many soldiers to be caused by drinking large quantities of high-mineral bottled water during the blistering summer in Iraq. And 299 more were treated for heart problems and 249 for gastrointestinal illnesses.

Some troops were taken to medical facilities in Europe for minor procedures not available in Iraq, Stephanakis said, noting that 319 troops were evacuated for gynecological treatments, some of which may have been minor procedures.

"It's easier for us to evacuate them to Germany than to keep a gynecologist in Baghdad," she said.

An additional 504 troops were evacuated for treatment of psychiatric problems.

Stephanakis could not say how many of the psychiatric cases have been diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder, a debilitating mental condition that can strike troops who have been in combat or a war zone. "I have no breakdown," she said. "Most are related to what people call combat stress, depression, anxiety."

Lessin said the reported number of troops treated for psychiatric problems does not include those who didn't seek treatment until they returned home.

Since April, the military says, at least 17 U.S. troops have committed suicide in Iraq, and the cause of at least two dozen other noncombat deaths had not been determined.

Some critics accuse the military of low-balling figures to curb criticism of the war.

"I think it's a general reluctance to be forthcoming," said Wilson "Woody" Powell, a Korean War veteran and executive director of Veterans for Peace, a St. Louis anti-war organization.

"There are ways of shaping numbers," Powell said. "You can do a lot just by omitting a few things now and then."

For example, critics said, the figures released by the Army do not include men and women whose injuries or illnesses were treated in Iraq, only those who required transfer to medical facilities outside Iraq.

Some troops who have been wounded in bomb or mortar attacks have been awarded the Purple Heart, but their wounds were not serious enough to require them to be evacuated.

Stephanakis acknowledged the figures don't include every troop injury and illness from the war in Iraq. But because the military medical system was designed to give only enough treatment in Iraq to stabilize patients and transfer them to facilities in Europe, the U.S. or elsewhere, virtually every serious injury or illness is included in the numbers, she said.

And although accidents have killed and seriously injured hundreds of troops in wartime Iraq, even in peace time, military accidents claim many lives.

In 1999, the latest year for which statistics were available, 761 U.S. troops died around the world in a military population of about 1.4 million, according to the Defense Department. Most of those deaths, 411, were caused by accidents, with illness claiming 126 lives and self-inflicted wounds 110.

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