U.S. Troops Death Toll Mounts as Iraq Danger Persists
Fri Sep 3, 2004 01:30 PM ET
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By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military death toll in Iraq is approaching 1,000, with the danger faced by American troops undiminished in the two months since the formation of an interim government.
The United States transferred sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on June 28, officially ending the occupation. But more than 137,000 U.S. troops and 23,000 allied foreign soldiers remain in Iraq protecting Allawi's government and fighting a persistent insurgency that has left much of the country a battleground.
Since the March 2003 invasion to topple President Saddam Hussein, 976 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, the Pentagon said on Friday, while another 6,916 have been wounded.
The average monthly U.S. military death toll has been about 55 troops in the 17-1/2 months of war. Forty-two U.S. troops died in Iraq in June. After the hand-over, 54 were killed in July and 66 in August.
"The hand-over to the Iraqis of political authority had virtually no impact on the military balance," said retired Army Col. Andrew Bacevich, a Boston University international relations professor.
"It didn't make the forces of order substantially stronger because Iraqi government forces did not somehow materialize instantly just because there was a new government. We basically have the same number of forces, mostly U.S. forces, and the same number, if not a larger number, of insurgents."
The worst months this year were April (135 U.S. military dead) and May (80 dead), when violence flared simultaneously in the Shi'ite Muslim south and in the Sunni city Falluja.
But August still ranked among the deadliest months of the war as U.S. forces battled fighters loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf while continuing to face dangers around Baghdad and in the Sunni Triangle.
'A FACT OF WARFARE'
"Casualties are a fact of warfare. We are a nation at war," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. "We are safer today because of the sacrifices and the brave service of our men and women in uniform."
Whitman said the milestone of 1,000 troops dead in Iraq, which could be reached in two weeks if the current daily average of two U.S. military deaths persists, must be viewed in the broader context of American deaths either in terrorist incidents or in fighting terrorism.
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