They made several fervent human-wave assaults against rows of concertina wire and concrete barriers. Many hundreds if not thousands of them were gunned down in the first two daysFWIW, the media here is reporting a total of about 600 dead on the Iraqi side since the "uprising" began.
Based on what you have reported, this figure seems to be very low.
The 'media' et. al. for the most part remain in their hotels in Baghdad. They do not consider CENTCOM or soldiers a source of information. Rather, they appear to rely upon calling on some 'source' in a city/region to find out what's going on there. No source in Najaf = no information. One source in the Al Kut area = bad information as in: "Ukranians abandon their base in Al Kut". The journalists dare not travel alone, that's for 'little people' like aid workers, businessmen and missionaries. Their employers are too cheap to hire security for them so they sit around and make snide reports regarding security personnel and those they protect. I suppose it's hard for them to come to terms with the fact that they're not only useless, misguided and incorrect but, in the eyes of their employers, worthless as well.
As for journalists' casualty figures it appears their only source for insurgent casualties to date is a statement attributed to a doctor in Fallujah saying there were 600 dead from Marines' fire, which of course was mostly "women and children". That's the extent and quality of the media's reporting as I can tell.