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Pastimes : Rarely is the question asked: "is our children learning" -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Sladek who wrote (1409)	12/3/2003 9:27:56 PM
From: John Sladek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2171

03Dec03-Patrick McDonell-Military starts body count of enemy killed By Patrick McDonnell Baghdad December 3, 2003 Print this article Email to a friend The enemy body count is back. Sort of. US military officials, in their regular news briefings in Iraq, have quietly begun reporting on enemy "KIA" or killed in action. The US Army had long resisted including such figures, in part fearing comparison to the Vietnam War, when enemy casualties always seemed to dwarf US losses even as the war was going badly. And inflated body counts pointed to a Pentagon spin operation unable to mask the bad news in South-East Asia. But the steady rise in US casualties in Iraq - November was the deadliest month with 111 members of the US-led coalition killed - has apparently contributed to a shift in approach. On Monday, army spokesman Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt said 54 Iraqi insurgents were killed during a series of running battles in Samarra, north of the capital. He listed enemy "KIA" in engagement after engagement during the Samarra clash. General Kimmitt signalled the shift in policy a few weeks ago when he began regularly providing enemy KIA totals. The numbers were generally small, but on a few occasions as many as half a dozen or more were said to have been killed in confrontations with US forces. Most perished in combat away from the eyes of the media. advertisement advertisement On Monday, officials were hesitant to talk publicly about the decision to provide details on enemy dead. But it seemed clear the change was part of an effort to present US forces in a more dynamic and offensive manner - not as a plodding occupying army taking steady casualties without inflicting damage. One senior military officer said: "We've been killing and capturing bushels of these guys, but no one was talking about it. This is a conscious change in policy... for a while there it was beginning to look like only Americans were being killed." There is still no running total of how many enemy combatants have been killed by US forces in Iraq. The army is only providing day-to-day numbers. Still, the enemy losses tend to overwhelm US casualty totals. - Los Angeles Times theage.com.au