Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Philadelphia Inquirer
February 8, 2007
Pg. 1
Worst 4 months for U.S.; shift to urban fight cited.
By Robert Burns, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - More American troops were killed in combat in Iraq over the last four months - at least 334 through Jan. 31 - than in any comparable stretch since the war began, an Associated Press analysis of casualty records shows.
Not since the bloody battle for Fallujah in 2004 has the death toll spiked so high.
The reason is that U.S. soldiers and Marines are fighting more battles in the streets of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and other cities. The top killer is the roadside bomb, but hostile forces also have had more success lately shooting down U.S. helicopters. Pentagon officials said initial indications from the crash of a Marine CH-46 helicopter yesterday, killing all seven aboard, were that it was caused by mechanical trouble, not hostile fire.
U.S. commanders thought they had managed to avoid urban warfare after U.S. troops entered Baghdad in early April 2003 and quickly toppled the Saddam Hussein regime.
And with President Bush now sending thousands more U.S. troops to Baghdad and western Anbar province, the prospect looms of even higher casualties.
The shadowy insurgency has managed to counter or compensate for every new U.S. military technique for defeating roadside bombs, which over time have proliferated and grown increasingly powerful.
The United States has spent billions trying to counter that threat, and the Bush administration in its 2008 budget request to Congress this week asked for an additional $6.4 billion to find more-effective defenses against it.
The increasingly urban nature of the war is reflected in the fact that a higher percentage of U.S. deaths lately has been in Baghdad. Over the course of the war, through Tuesday, at least 1,142 U.S. troops have died in Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency, according to an AP count. That compares with 713 in Baghdad. But since Dec. 28, there were more in Baghdad than in Anbar - 33 to 31.
The increase in combat deaths comes as the Pentagon begins adding 21,500 troops in Iraq as part of Bush's new strategy for stabilizing the country. Most are going to Baghdad.
With the buildup, U.S. forces will be operating more aggressively in the capital, a tactical shift that senior military officials say raises the prospect of even higher U.S. casualties.
"There's clearly going to be an increased risk in this area," Adm. William Fallon, Bush's choice to be the next commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, told his Senate confirmation hearing last week.
The risk is already extraordinarily high from roadside bombs.
Here's one frustration: The Americans have improved their ability to find and disarm these bombs before they detonate, and they have outfitted troops in better body armor.
But the insurgents still manage to adjust: new tactics in planting the bombs; new, more powerful explosives; different means of detonating them; and a seemingly endless supply of materials.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that 70 percent of U.S. casualties were caused by such bombs. He said that, lately, Iran - allegedly in league with renegade Shiite groups in southern Iraq - has supplied a more lethal version so powerful that it could destroy a U.S. Abrams battle tank, which is shielded with heavy armor.
On Jan. 22, Army National Guard Spec. Brandon L. Stout, 23, of Grand Rapids, Mich., was killed in Baghdad by one of those more powerful bombs, known as an explosively formed projectile.
Hostile forces also have had more success lately shooting down U.S. helicopters, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged Tuesday. He said four U.S. helicopters in recent weeks have been shot down by small-arms fire, including a Black Hawk in which all 12 National Guard soldiers aboard were killed.
There have also been troubling new twists to some other attacks, including the sneak attack in Karbala that killed five U.S. soldiers; four of them were abducted and executed by unknown gunmen. U.S. officials say they are probing whether Iranian agents planned or executed that Jan. 20 attack.
Under a new approach announced Jan. 10 by Bush, U.S. troops will now be paired with Iraqi brigades in each of nine districts across Baghdad, rather than operating mainly from large U.S. bases.
"Our troops are going to be inserted into the most difficult areas imaginable - right into neighborhoods, right in the face of the Iraqis," said Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.), who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee. "How are we going to avoid the inherent risks that are created?"
February 8, 2007
Pg. 1
Worst 4 months for U.S.; shift to urban fight cited.
By Robert Burns, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - More American troops were killed in combat in Iraq over the last four months - at least 334 through Jan. 31 - than in any comparable stretch since the war began, an Associated Press analysis of casualty records shows.
Not since the bloody battle for Fallujah in 2004 has the death toll spiked so high.
The reason is that U.S. soldiers and Marines are fighting more battles in the streets of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and other cities. The top killer is the roadside bomb, but hostile forces also have had more success lately shooting down U.S. helicopters. Pentagon officials said initial indications from the crash of a Marine CH-46 helicopter yesterday, killing all seven aboard, were that it was caused by mechanical trouble, not hostile fire.
U.S. commanders thought they had managed to avoid urban warfare after U.S. troops entered Baghdad in early April 2003 and quickly toppled the Saddam Hussein regime.
And with President Bush now sending thousands more U.S. troops to Baghdad and western Anbar province, the prospect looms of even higher casualties.
The shadowy insurgency has managed to counter or compensate for every new U.S. military technique for defeating roadside bombs, which over time have proliferated and grown increasingly powerful.
The United States has spent billions trying to counter that threat, and the Bush administration in its 2008 budget request to Congress this week asked for an additional $6.4 billion to find more-effective defenses against it.
The increasingly urban nature of the war is reflected in the fact that a higher percentage of U.S. deaths lately has been in Baghdad. Over the course of the war, through Tuesday, at least 1,142 U.S. troops have died in Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency, according to an AP count. That compares with 713 in Baghdad. But since Dec. 28, there were more in Baghdad than in Anbar - 33 to 31.
The increase in combat deaths comes as the Pentagon begins adding 21,500 troops in Iraq as part of Bush's new strategy for stabilizing the country. Most are going to Baghdad.
With the buildup, U.S. forces will be operating more aggressively in the capital, a tactical shift that senior military officials say raises the prospect of even higher U.S. casualties.
"There's clearly going to be an increased risk in this area," Adm. William Fallon, Bush's choice to be the next commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, told his Senate confirmation hearing last week.
The risk is already extraordinarily high from roadside bombs.
Here's one frustration: The Americans have improved their ability to find and disarm these bombs before they detonate, and they have outfitted troops in better body armor.
But the insurgents still manage to adjust: new tactics in planting the bombs; new, more powerful explosives; different means of detonating them; and a seemingly endless supply of materials.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that 70 percent of U.S. casualties were caused by such bombs. He said that, lately, Iran - allegedly in league with renegade Shiite groups in southern Iraq - has supplied a more lethal version so powerful that it could destroy a U.S. Abrams battle tank, which is shielded with heavy armor.
On Jan. 22, Army National Guard Spec. Brandon L. Stout, 23, of Grand Rapids, Mich., was killed in Baghdad by one of those more powerful bombs, known as an explosively formed projectile.
Hostile forces also have had more success lately shooting down U.S. helicopters, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged Tuesday. He said four U.S. helicopters in recent weeks have been shot down by small-arms fire, including a Black Hawk in which all 12 National Guard soldiers aboard were killed.
There have also been troubling new twists to some other attacks, including the sneak attack in Karbala that killed five U.S. soldiers; four of them were abducted and executed by unknown gunmen. U.S. officials say they are probing whether Iranian agents planned or executed that Jan. 20 attack.
Under a new approach announced Jan. 10 by Bush, U.S. troops will now be paired with Iraqi brigades in each of nine districts across Baghdad, rather than operating mainly from large U.S. bases.
"Our troops are going to be inserted into the most difficult areas imaginable - right into neighborhoods, right in the face of the Iraqis," said Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.), who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee. "How are we going to avoid the inherent risks that are created?"