Posted on 02/03/2004 6:22:24 PM PST by RJCogburn
American soldiers are dying at a rate of more than one a day in Iraq, despite some commanders' recent claims to have broken the back of the insurgency.
The toll in January was 45 - five more than in December - despite hopes that deposed President Saddam Hussein's capture would stop the killings from roadside bombs and other attacks.
The number of deaths in January will rise to 47 when the Pentagon changes the status of two soldiers who are missing and believed to have died in the Tigris River on Jan. 25. That would make the second highest monthly total since last April when daily combat from the U.S.-led invasion was under way.
All told, 528 U.S. troops have died in the war, including three so far this month. The worst month was November, when 82 died. In October there were 43, September had 30, August 35.
Of 39 deaths in January that the Army attributed to hostile action, 23 involved attacks with homemade bombs, which the military calls "improvised explosive devices," and which have been the insurgents' weapon of choice, according to a review of Pentagon casualty reports.
The Army has put great emphasis on defeating the threat from homemade bombs, often detonated along roadways used by Army convoys. Usually a remotely transmitted signal sets them off.
To counter the threat, more soldiers are using Humvee utility vehicles with extra armor, and troops are wearing an improved version of body armor that provides more protection against bomb shrapnel. Some vehicles also are equipped now with devices that jam the electronic signal used to detonate the bombs.
Most of the attackers are thought to be remnants of the Baath Party that ruled Iraq under Saddam for more than three decades, although some may be foreign terrorists.
When U.S. troops captured Saddam near his hometown of Tikrit on Dec. 13, some thought that would take the punch out of the resistance. By early January, U.S. commanders were publicly emphasizing that the number of attacks on U.S. troops had declined, as had hostile deaths.
Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, told reporters on Jan. 6 that "we've turned the corner" in the counterinsurgency effort in his area of responsibility, the western part of Iraq, which includes a part of the "Sunni Triangle" west of Baghdad.
The number of attacks on his forces had declined by almost 60 percent in the past month, he said then.
Two weeks later, Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, said, "The former regime elements we've been combating have been brought to their knees." His troops operate in an area north of Baghdad that includes Tikrit, a focus of anti-U.S. violence.
But in fact, many of the fatal attacks against U.S. forces in January were in Swannack's and Odierno's areas. On Jan. 24, for example, three soldiers from Swannack's force were killed in an improvised explosive device attack in the town of Khalidiyah, east of Ramadi, in the Sunni Triangle. Three days later, another such attack near the same town killed three more soldiers. Still another who was severely wounded in the same attack died in a hospital two days later.
On Jan. 31, three soldiers from Odierno's 4th Infantry Division were killed when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device while traveling in a convoy in the city of Kirkuk.
The depth and effectiveness of the insurgency is difficult to measure with only statistics, which tend to fluctuate over time. It appeared a few weeks ago that many U.S. commanders had hoped the dropoff in guerrilla action would usher in a less violent period for U.S. troops.
That has not happened.
In an eight-day span, Jan. 9 to Jan. 16, only three American soldiers died, and two from nonhostile causes.
But in the two weeks after that, 26 died - all but three in hostile action.
L. Paul Bremer, U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq, said Tuesday he still believes security has improved.
"I think the situation has improved importantly since the capture of Saddam Hussein," he said.
In the four weeks after Saddam's capture, the number of insurgent attacks against American troops throughout Iraq did fall to an average of 18 per day from 23 per day in the preceding four weeks.
But on Tuesday, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of operations for the U.S. military in Baghdad, told reporters that the daily average had climbed back to 23 in the past week.
Attacks against Iraqis also are on the rise, although it is not clear that all those are related directly to the insurgency. The two near-simultaneous suicide bombings in the northern city of Irbil on Sunday, for example, killed 101 people, U.S. military officials said Tuesday, including top Kurdish political figures.
The news media, which constantly accuse the Bush administration of exaggerating the threat in Iraq, are constantly exaggerating the number of U.S. combat deaths there. I first pointed this out last August. For a while, the exaggeration stopped, but early in January it recommenced. The round number "500" was apparently irresistible.
Yet as of January 15, exactly ten months after the war began on March 16, 2003, the official number of U.S. combat deaths listed by the Defense Department was 343. Another 155 had died from non-hostile causes, including 100 in accidents and others from illness. Since non-hostile causes are responsible for army deaths in peacetime as well as wartime, in bases at home as well as in war zones, many of the non-hostile deaths ought not to be counted as specific to Iraq, although, of course, a portion of them are.
These 343 (not 500) combat deaths, furthermore, need to be set in context. During 2003, the number of homicides in Chicago was 599, in New York City 596, in Los Angeles 505, in Detroit 361, in Philadelphia 347, in Baltimore 271, in Houston 276, and in Washington 247. That makes 3,002 murders in only eight cities.
The least the media could do is print the number of combat deaths in Iraq in two columns. The first would show the number of days since the war began (as of January 15, 305). The second column might show the number of combat deaths as of the same date (343).
Since January 15, the death toll has climbed in one of its upward spurts, as roadside bombings by more sophisticated agencies become more deadly. The countdown toward the turnover of the levers of government to Iraqi leaders is now less than 150 days away. We can expect the bitter despair of the Sunni diehards and the foreign jihadists to grow. They will try to stop history in its tracks. They will become ever more violent. They have been drawn like moths to bang against the brightness of our troops in the dark. Now, more than ever, we need a steady hand at the American helm. Now is not the time for recriminations and retreat.
The war in Iraq has been one of the noblest and brightest pages in American history. At enormous risk to ourselves, and at great cost, our troops have liberated an entire people from one of the most sadistic despots in history. In the near future, they will leave behind a far better infrastructure (better schools, hospitals and clinics, power grids, telephone systems, oil technology, television, etc.) than has heretofore existed in Iraq, a greater array of free media, and the first beginnings of a new form of republican government not before experienced on the ancient soil hallowed by Hammurabi. The fear Saddam struck in the hearts of his neighbors, and the instability he promoted in the region, will be no more.
Those who died in that cause have given an unforgettable gift to the Iraqi people, which will be remembered with gratitude for generations to come. Their extraordinary achievements have burnished the glory of our nation, and their fame will long outlive the early opposition of those compromised by their past dealings with Saddam. The rich rewards raked in from Saddam's network of international bribery are only now being revealed. The predictions of those who marched against the war — about massive streams of refugees, hunger, the unleashing of weapons of mass destruction, immense domestic destruction, huge uprisings in "the Arab street," etc. — have been proved false.
The international terrorist groups led by al Qaeda have now been deprived of their bases in Afghanistan, their potential source of chemical and biological agents in Iraq, their support from Libya, their unrestricted access to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and the reliability of their hitherto totally safe assistance from Iran and Syria. All this our honored dead have won for us. Their families deserve to glory in it for generations.
"Greater love no man hath," the Good Book tells us, "than that he lay down his life for his friends." This, too, they have done for their fellow citizens. They have saved the cause of liberty from the shame of appeasing terror. They have protected their homeland and countrymen.
One day it will be a great boast for their children: "My father fought in Iraqi Freedom. He altered the course of history." And so they will be remembered by grandchildren, so long as memory lives.
I don't know, how about this? They figure it out for themselves. Anyone who believes, really believes, we are going to change the mindset of that culture is deluded. Are there some who want the change? Of course. Are there far more who are so foreign to our political and social ways that will truly inhibit real change there? Of course again. We are not going to change an entire mindset rooted in centuries of belief just because, Gosh, we want to. It's not terrible or unpatriotic to say it. It's just the damned truth.
~William Shakespeare, Henry V
Saddam was a real bully too. And Osama has not been forgotten. Even money says he will be in custody this year.
The totals range from 774 to 2465 per year.
And the opposition party putting country before party was not the Demonrats.
I'd just like to live till 200. The last 172 years aren't the greatest.
I know this is slightly off-topic, but I just wanted to point out that NYC has about 3 times the population of Chicago so while the actual homicide numbers may have been close, Chicago's murder rate was much higher. NYC is actually an amazingly safe city. Safer than any other large city in the U.S. and safer than many other smaller cities, too.
No one here has trivialized the deaths of those brave soliders. They were merely pointing out the number of soliders who died for a just cause was much lower than those who died totaly senseless deaths. The soliders that died in Iraq had just as good of chance of dying here in the US.
As for calling people blathering idiots.....I'm not sure you want to go there.
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