BUSH LIES DEPT.: Penatgon understates true number of casualties --
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Number of Wounded in Action on Rise
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post
Tuesday, September 2, 2003
Iraq Toll Reflects Medical Advances, Resistance Troops Face
U.S. battlefield casualties in Iraq are increasing dramatically in the face of continued attacks by
remnants of Saddam Hussein's military and other forces, with almost 10 American troops a day now
being officially declared "wounded in action."
The number of those wounded in action, which totals 1,124 since the war began in March, has
grown so large, and attacks have become so commonplace, that U.S. Central Command usually
issues news releases listing injuries only when the attacks kill one or more troops. The result is that
many injuries go unreported.
The rising number and quickening pace of soldiers being wounded on the battlefield have been
overshadowed by the number of troops killed since President Bush declared an end to major combat
operations May 1. But alongside those Americans killed in action, an even greater toll of battlefield
wounded continues unabated, with an increasing number being injured through small-arms fire,
rocket-propelled grenades, remote-controlled mines and what the Pentagon refers to as "improvised
explosive devices."
Indeed, the number of troops wounded in action in Iraq is now more than twice that of the Persian
Gulf War in 1991. The total increased more than 35 percent in August -- with an average of almost 10
troops a day injured last month.
Fifty-five Americans were wounded in action last week alone, pushing the number of troops
wounded in action since May 1 beyond the number wounded during peak fighting. From March 19 to
April 30, 550 U.S. troops were wounded in action in Iraq. Since May 1, the number totals 574. The
number of troops killed in Iraq since the beginning of May already has surpassed the total killed during
the height of the war.
Pentagon officials point to advances in military medicine as one of the reasons behind the large
number of wounded soldiers; many lives are being saved on the battlefield that in past conflicts would
have been lost. But the rising number of casualties also reflects the resistance that U.S. forces
continue to meet nearly five months after Hussein was ousted from power.
Although Central Command keeps a running total of the wounded, it releases the number only when
asked -- making the combat injuries of U.S. troops in Iraq one of the untold stories of the war.
With no fanfare and almost no public notice, giant C-17 transport jets arrive virtually every night at
Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, on medical evacuation missions. Since the war began,
more than 6,000 service members have been flown back to the United States. The number includes the
1,124 wounded in action, 301 who received non-hostile injuries in vehicle accidents and other mishaps,
and thousands who became physically or mentally ill.
"Our nation doesn't know that," said Susan Brewer, president and founder of America's Heroes of
Freedom, a nonprofit organization that collects clothing and other personal items for the returning
troops. "Sort of out of sight and out of mind."
On Thursday night, a C-17 arrived at Andrews with 44 patients from Iraq. Ambulances arrived to
take the most seriously wounded to the nation's two premier military hospitals, Water Reed Army
Medical Center in Washington and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. Dozens of others
stayed overnight at what the Air Force calls a contingency aeromedical staging facility, which has
taken over an indoor tennis club and an adjacent community center.
On Friday morning, smaller C-130 transports began arriving to take the walking wounded and less
seriously injured to their home bases, from Fort Bragg in North Carolina to Fort Lewis in Washington
state. Another C-17 was due in Friday night from Germany, with 12 patients on stretchers, 24 listed on
the flight manifest as ambulatory and nine other passengers, either family members or escorts.
"That's going to fill us right back up by the end of today," said Lt. Col. Allen Delaney, who
commands the staging center. Eighty-six members of his reserve unit, the 459th Aeromedical Staging
Squadron, based at Andrews, were called up for a year in April to run what is essentially a medical air
terminal, the nation's hub, for war wounded from Iraq.
At Walter Reed, a half-hour drive from Andrews, Maj. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, the hospital's
commanding general, said there were only two days in July and four in August that the hospital did not
admit soldiers injured in Iraq.
"The orthopedic surgeons are very busy, and the nursing services are very busy, both in the
intensive care units and on the wards," he said, explaining that there have been five or six instances in
recent months when all of the hospital's 40 intensive care beds have been filled -- mostly with battlefield
wounded.
Kiley said rocket-propelled grenades and mines can wound multiple troops at a time and cause "the
kind of amputating damage that you don't necessarily see with a bullet wound to the arm or leg."
The result has been large numbers of troops coming back to Walter Reed and National Naval
Medical with serious blast wounds and arms and legs that have been amputated, either in Iraq or at
Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where virtually all battlefield casualties are treated and
stabilized.
"A few of us started volunteering [at Walter Reed] as amputees in 1991, and this is the most we've
seen ever," said Jim Mayer, a double amputee from the Vietnam War who works at the Veterans
Administration. "I've never seen anything like this. But I haven't seen anybody not get good care."
Kiley said that Walter Reed has 600 physicians and 350 physicians in training, plus reservists and
the ability to bring in more nurses if necessary. The hospital "could go on from an operational
perspective indefinitely -- we have a lot of capacity," he said. The hospital has treated 1,100 patients
from the war, including 228 battlefield casualties.
National Naval Medical Center was most severely stressed during the major combat phase of the
war, said Capt. Michael J. Krentz, its deputy commander. During that period, 800 of the hospital's
medical professionals -- a third of its regular staff and half its military staff -- deployed overseas to the
USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship. The hospital called up 600 reservists to replace them.
Before the fall of Baghdad in April, the hospital had 40 patients a night -- mostly Marines -- from
Iraq. Now the number is down to three, since the Marines have begun departing and will soon hand
peacekeeping duties in their area south of Baghdad to multinational forces.
"Taking care of returning casualties is our number one job -- that's why we're here," Krentz said.
"That's our sworn duty, and it's our honor to do so."
Kiley and Krentz said high-tech body armor and state-of-the-art battlefield medical procedures are
keeping more seriously wounded soldiers alive than ever before.
Krentz said advanced radiological equipment aboard the Comfort enabled doctors to spot internal
injuries and operate much sooner than they might have otherwise been able to, preventing fatalities. In
fact, he said, patients had been stabilized so well overseas that there were no deaths of returning
service members at Bethesda.
Kiley said he had seen several cases in which soldiers had been operated on in the field so quickly
that doctors managed to save limbs that might otherwise have been lost. "But it's a long haul even
when they do preserve limbs," he said.
Go to Original
Report: Attacks on U.S. Personnel in Iraq Rising
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post
Tuesday 02 September 2003
Attacks on civilians and U.S. military personnel in Iraq have become so commonplace that a brazen
assassination attempt last month on two military officers in civilian dress working for the Coalition
Provisional Authority wasn't even reported at the time.
Word of the attack, which left the two Americans shaken but only slightly injured by gunfire, finally
turned up last week in the latest security report from Centurion Risk Assessment Services, a British
firm staffed by former Royal Marine commandos and British Special forces personnel that counsels
journalists and businessmen on how to operate safely in dangerous environments.
"Everyone working in Iraq should take note of this as it could add to problems regarding personal
safety and security," Centurion said. "It is believed that this is the first direct assassination attempt on
international staff in this manner."
"Many incidents are not making the headlines," the report continued. "Most of them are not being
reported at all by the forces involved as they are possibly trying to minimize the threats and play down
the overall threat to all involved in working in Iraq."
A spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led reconstruction agency in Iraq,
confirmed the Aug. 16 attack and said it occurred as the two officers detailed to the CPA were leaving
the home of a fellow employee in Baghdad. An unidentified gunman fired three shots, one of which
apparently grazed both officers, the spokesman said.
"They drove themselves to the hospital to be checked out, and they went to work the next day," the
spokesman said. "They were obviously very fortunate."
Two other shots fired during the attack hit two Iraqi bystanders. "It's hard to know exactly what was
going on," the spokesman said. "CPA employees thankfully have not been subject to a large number of
violent attacks. It's very fortunate that they escaped with very minor injuries."
The Centurion reference to the attack, interestingly enough, comes near the end of its Aug. 27
report, a long laundry list of attacks. It begins, "The nature and intensity of recent security incidents in
Iraq gives great cause for concern." And it concludes, "Most of Baghdad and surrounding areas in Iraq
remain dangerous with increasing attacks on forces and minor attacks on westerners. The overall trend
observed is that of deterioration of the security environment in the country."
What comes in between is hair-raising. Some highlights:
"Armed hijackings are reported daily, especially on the usual route between Baghdad and
Amman."
"The use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) is becoming more widespread, especially in
the use of remote-controlled devices that limit the dangers to attackers. There have been a
number of grenade/IED attacks all over Baghdad, all near hotels where the media, aid agency
and non-governmental organization staff are staying. These incidents are rising every day."
I don't know how many times I've heard administration officials argue that the media is overplaying
the attacks in Iraq, accentuating the negative, ignoring obvious progress and painting a distorted picture
of postwar Iraq. If anything, the Centurion update makes me think the media may actually be failing to
capture just how precarious security really is.
Reverberations From the Battle For Nasiriyah
The U.S. Central Command is still investigating a friendly fire incident from the battle for Nasiriyah in
southern Iraq, the single most costly engagement of the war in Iraq. In the March 23 incident, an Air
Force A-10 apparently fired upon Marines fighting to capture a critical bridge, killing anywhere from one
to six infantrymen. A total of 18 Marines died during the battle, and 15 others were wounded.
Col. Ray B. Shepherd, the Central Command's chief public affairs officer, said last week that the
friendly fire report is still not complete but expected soon. "The report is classified, but an unclassified
executive summary will be released and posted on our web site as soon as it is available," Shepherd
said in an email. "Further details will take some time as the legal folks work their way through
declassifying the full report. Until the report is completed, there will not be any one you can talk to on
this."
The Central Command has been far from forthcoming in its release of friendly fire investigations from
the war in Afghanistan, two of which I have tried to acquire through the Freedom of Information Act with
no success.
The battle for Nasiriyah was described last week in stark and vivid detail by Rich Connell and Robert
J. Lopez in The Los Angeles Times. It was one of those articles I wish I had written, which is the
ultimate compliment one journalist can pay another. The piece was based on interviews with 11
Marines who fought in the battle and are still trying to come to terms with it.
"They want to know why commanders sent them into an urban firefight without tanks, without
protective plating for their vehicles and with only half the troops planned for the mission," Connell and
Lopez write. "They want to know why an Air Force fighter strafed their positions as they struggled to
hold the bridge, killing at least one Marine and possibly as many as six."
In their account, Connell and Lopez said the Marines have conducted their own review of the battle,
but will not release their findings until the Central Command completes its friendly fire investigation.
Capt. Sean Turner, a Marines spokesman at the Pentagon, said last week that the Marine review
was not a formal investigation in which individuals could be cited for disciplinary action, as in the
Central Command review.
Rather, Turner said, the Marines asked a combat assessment team sent to Iraq to conduct an
extensive "lessons learned" study of the war to review the battle as part of an overall assessment of
"things we did good, and things we did bad."
The Los Angeles Times article is one of those all too rare accounts, like Mark Bowden's classic
book "Blackhawk Down," that begins to capture both the horror and the heroism of modern combat. |
