Pentagon's death toll in Iraq rising

The Dallas Morning News and The Associated Press

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WASHINGTON — November was the bloodiest month for U.S. troops in Iraq since April, with at least 135 losing their lives and more than 50 falling in the two-week battle to evict insurgents from Fallujah.

But while Fallujah accounted for most of the increase over October's 63 U.S. deaths, the toll has risen nearly every month since spring. That suggests Iraq's insurgents are a shrewd, tough enemy — and leaves unclear which side is winning, military analysts said.

Even without the loss of more than 50 Marines, sailors and soldiers in Fallujah, the number of U.S. deaths in November was about 80. The last time the number killed in action exceeded that was in April, when 135 U.S. troops died battling insurgents in Fallujah and across the Sunni Triangle region north and west of Baghdad.

Since the conflict began in March 2003, 1,254 U.S. service members have died in Iraq, according to the Pentagon's official death toll. That total does not include a Marine killed Monday in Anbar province and a 1st Infantry Division soldier who died late Monday night near the town of Alazu.

Total U.S. military deaths in Iraq, including accidents, have climbed since June, when the number was 42 according to a Pentagon list. The monthly death totals were 54 in July, 65 in August and 80 in September.

Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington reported Monday that it received 32 additional battle casualties from Iraq over the past two weeks. One was in critical condition. All 32 had been treated earlier at the Army's largest hospital in Europe, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

Some of the most severe injuries — and many of the deaths — among U.S. troops in Iraq are inflicted by the insurgents' homemade bombs, which the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

U.S. forces have put extraordinary effort into countering the IED threat, yet it persists. U.S. troops in Fallujah reported finding nearly as many homemade explosives over the past three weeks as had been uncovered throughout Iraq in the previous four months combined.

A resurgence in armed actions broke out yesterday in areas west of Fallujah along a key highway leading to Jordan, just weeks after a massive U.S.-led military offensive in the city.
 
Heavily armed anti-American insurgents yesterday took over and briefly held nine police stations and highway checkpoints, blowing up two buildings, police said. Drivers reported that insurgents also took control of large sections of the highway leading west out of Iraq, stopping traffic and shaking down passengers.

The takeover of police installations came on a day of bombings against U.S. military convoys elsewhere. The worst was in Beiji, an oil-refining town in the north, as a U.S. military convoy went through a bustling area of shops. A car bomb killed seven civilians and wounded at least 15 people, including two U.S. soldiers.

In a simultaneous attack elsewhere in Beiji, 110 miles north of Baghdad, insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. tank, wounding a soldier. Five U.S. soldiers were wounded when a suicide bomber blew up his car along the perilous road from Baghdad to its international airport, destroying an armored military truck. The blast left a large crater in the road.

U.S. forces said an American soldier died late Monday after an explosion hit his patrol north of Baghdad.

The armed actions west of Fallujah came just weeks after some 10,000 U.S. troops stormed the city in the bloodiest urban military campaign for U.S. forces since the Vietnam War. "Unfortunately, it reflects the fact that the insurgency's been getting stronger and more effective month by month," said Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution.

"The number of attacks per day is up, the number of casualties to Iraqi security forces is up, and these trends did not begin this month."

Capt. Dan McSweeney, a Marine Corps spokesman at the Pentagon, said the increase in combat deaths during November was "indicative of the fact that we are pressing the offensive and taking the fight to the enemy."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference last Tuesday that the kinds and amount of weapons found in Fallujah indicated the insurgents pose a serious and continuing threat.

"No doubt attacks will continue in the weeks and months ahead, and perhaps intensify as the Iraqi election approaches," Rumsfeld said, referring to national elections scheduled for Jan. 30.