Home > US casualties near record level in November
Wars and conflicts International
WASHINGTON: November has been the second deadliest month for US troops in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, and the Pentagon is braced for rising violence ahead of crucial parliamentary elections set for Jan. 30.
At least 109 US troops have been killed in Iraq this month, about half of whom died in an offensive that began on Nov. 8 to crush insurgents in their former stronghold Falluja, according to Pentagon figures.
In the 20-month war, only this past April, with 135 military deaths, produced a higher monthly U.S. death toll.
The offensive in Falluja, a city west of Baghdad from which US officials said insurgents had launched a spree of killings, bombings and kidnappings, was part of efforts to reduce the level of violence ahead of January’s elections.
But even as the US military said 1,200 to 1,600 insurgents had been killed in Falluja and their safe haven decisively seized, rebels continued their campaign of violence in numerous other cities.
The Pentagon’s latest official count, provided on Wednesday, listed 1,230 US military deaths in the Iraq war. It also listed more than 9,300 US troops wounded in action, more than 5,000 of whom were too badly injured to return to duty.
While Pentagon officials have hinted at the possibility of reducing US troop levels if elections go well and Iraqi government security forces prove capable, the officials warned not to expect any decline in violence in the near future.
"We are intent on trying to provide a secure and stable enough situation to be able to conduct nationwide elections in January. Now, I will not pretend that that’s not a challenge at this stage," said Air Force Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, the No. 2 officer in Central Command, responsible for US military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia.
’ATTACKS WILL CONTINUE’
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters: "No doubt attacks will continue in the weeks and months ahead, and perhaps intensify as the Iraqi election approaches. I suppose this has to be expected."
Opinion polls have shown the US public has been willing to stomach the continuing casualties in Iraq.
"I think the greater problem, frankly, is going to be within the ranks of the military itself, particular the families," said defense analyst Daniel Goure of the Lexington Institute, citing stress from mounting casualties, lengthy deployments and units being sent back to Iraq not long after coming home.
"We are in the process of attempting to reassert control," Goure said, after the Pentagon initially was ill prepared to fight the insurgency that arose after President Saddam Hussein was swiftly toppled.
"Having said that, one has to recognize that there’s a fair amount of bloodshed that will take place, largely because the other side is willing to shed blood," Goure said.
Falluja figured prominently in both of the two deadliest months of the war for US troops.
In April, Marines began and then aborted an offensive against insurgents in that city in the weeks after four private US security contractors were killed there, and pictures of their charred and mutilated corpses hung from a bridge seen globally. At the same time, US troops fought militia forces loyal to Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf and other southern cities.
This month supplanted November 2003, when 82 US troops were killed, as the second deadliest month of the war for the Americans.