Iraq death toll 'like Vietnam': Allies
Correspondents in Baghdad
06nov04
AS coalition forces last night continued the countdown to an attack on up to 5000 rebel fighters in the insurgent bastion of Fallujah, US officials warned the casualty toll would reach levels not seen since the Vietnam War.
Marine surgeon Lach Noyes made the grim prediction yesterday as Britain mourned the deaths of three soldiers from the famed Black Watch regiment, the first casualties in the controversial redeployment of British troops to US-controlled combat zones.
Commander Noyes said a US military hospital set up just outside Fallujah was preparing to handle 25 severely injured soldiers a day, not counting the walking wounded and the dead.
The hospital has added two operating rooms, doubled its supplies, added a mortuary and stocked up on blood reserves. Doctors have also set up a system of ambulance vehicles that will rush to the camp's gate to receive the dead and wounded so units can return to battle quickly.
The plans underscore the ferocity of the fight the US military expects in Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim city located about 55km west of Baghdad, that has been under insurgent control since April.
More than 1120 US troops have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, including at least three marines who were killed yesterday.
The deadliest month was April when fierce fighting killed 126 US troops in Fallujah and Ramadi before a ceasefire turned Fallujah over to the insurgents.
Even then, the death toll was far below the worst month of Vietnam, in April 1969, when the US death toll was 543 at the height of American involvement there.
US forces have been building up outside Fallujah for weeks in preparation for taking the city back.
Military planners expect the troops will encounter not just fighters wielding AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, but also heavy concentrations of mines, roadside bombs and possibly car bombs. Major Jim West, an intelligence officer with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said he believed there were 4000-5000 fighters between Fallujah and nearby Ramadi.
In the six weeks that Commander Noyes has worked at the Fallujah camp, his team has operated on marines with eyes gouged by shrapnel and limbs torn by explosions. He said some bodies were so badly mangled, they had to be sent home for DNA identification.
As US fighter jets stepped up air strikes on Fallujah yesterday, hundreds of residents fled the besieged city and sought refuge with family and friends in Baghdad.
Earlier, British Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram confirmed that three members of the Black Watch regiment had been killed and eight wounded in a suicide bomb attack on a checkpoint south of Baghdad.
Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to redeploy the troops has been harshly criticised with most British newspapers featuring news of the deaths on their front pages yesterday.
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