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Herb Ninja

November Death Toll In Iraq At 134

Source
November 30, 2004

WASHINGTON - Fueled by fierce fighting in Fallujah and insurgents' counterattacks elsewhere in Iraq, the U.S. military death toll for November is approaching the highest for any month of the war.

At least 134 U.S. troops died in November, according to casualty reports available Tuesday.

The worst month was April when 135 died as the insurgence flared in Fallujah and elsewhere in the so-called Sunni Triangle where U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies lost a large measure of control.

On Nov. 8, U.S. forces launched an offensive to retake Fallujah, and they have engaged in tough fighting in other cities since then. More than 50 U.S. troops have been killed in Fallujah since then, although the Pentagon has not provided a casualty count for Fallujah for more than a week.

From the viewpoint of the United States and Iraqis who are striving to restore stability, the casualty trend since the interim Iraqi government was put in power June 28 has been troubling. Each month's death toll has been higher than the last, with the single exception of October, when it was 63.

The monthly totals grew from 42 in June to 54 in July to 65 in August and to 80 in September.

The Pentagon's official death toll for Iraq, dating to the start of the war, stood at 1,251 on Monday, but that did not include three soldiers killed by two roadside bombs in the Baghdad area and another killed in a vehicle accident. When the month began, the official death toll stood at 1,121.

It was not clear whether the bombing deaths of two Marines south of Baghdad on Sunday were included in the overall count the Pentagon published Monday.

Combat injuries increased in November due to the fierce fighting in Fallujah. Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington reported Monday that it received 32 additional battle casualties from Iraq over the past two weeks. One was in critical condition. All 32 had been treated earlier at the Army's largest hospital in Europe, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

Some of the most severe injuries - and many of the deaths - among U.S. troops in Iraq are inflicted by the insurgents' homemade bombs, which the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

U.S. forces have put extraordinary effort into countering the IED threat, yet it persists. U.S. troops in Fallujah reported finding nearly as many homemade explosives over the past three weeks as had been uncovered throughout Iraq in the previous four months combined.

In recent action in Fallujah, troops found at least 650 homemade bombs, Bryan Whitman, a spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said Monday. That compares with 722 found throughout the country between July 1 and October 31.

The IEDs are rigged to detonate by remote control and often are hidden along roadways used by U.S. forces, to deadly effect.

Since U.S. forces invaded Fallujah on Nov. 8 to regain control, they have found about a dozen IED "factories," a number of vehicles being modified to serve as car bombs, and at least 10 surface-to-air missiles capable of downing aircraft, Whitman said.

More than half of the approximately 100 mosques in Fallujah were used as fighting positions or weapon storage sites, Whitman said, citing a U.S. military report that has not been released publicly.

U.S. officials knew insurgents had used Fallujah as a haven from which to plan and organize resources for attacks in Baghdad and other cities in the Sunni Triangle north and west of the capital, but the amount of weapons found exceeded expectations.

Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference last Tuesday that the kinds and amount of weapons found in Fallujah indicated the insurgents pose a serious and continuing threat.

"No doubt attacks will continue in the weeks and months ahead, and perhaps intensify as the Iraqi election approaches," Rumsfeld said, referring to national elections scheduled for Jan. 30.

Whitman said other discoveries in Fallujah include:

-Plastic explosives and TNT.

-A hand-held Global Positioning System receiver for use in navigation.

-Makeshift shoulder-fired rocket launchers, rocket-propelled grenades, 122mm rockets and thousands of mortar rounds.

-An anti-aircraft artillery gun.

-More than 200 major weapons storage areas.

{HerbNinja: There isn't much I can say, hopefully they will rest in peace.}

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Ron Paul for the Long Haul

 

Cassius

I wonder if anyone finds it surprising that it's harder to occupy a country than it is to capture it. This should have been expected from the beginning. Oh wait, it was, that's why we were going to pull out by June 30th wasn't it? Whatever happened to that?

Aren't they responsible for themselves yet? Why do we need to keep dying?

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{ Cassius, Your Humble Narrator }
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Hiz Highness

It used to be the fault of the administration that our soldiers had to keep dying. Now the fault rests squarely on the shoulders of the American people. Apparently a slim majority of Americans don't care whether the soldiers die or not, as long as the government promises them that in some vague way this farce of a war is making us all safer.

Of course, these same Americans are in no rush to sign up and do some dying themselves.

-HH

Herb Ninja

I disagree, I think its more the fault of A) The politicians & B) The people who are actually killing them. Now you can say "well the Americans vote for the politicians" so its their fault, but thats sketchy. You might get away with saying its the fault of the majority of voters, but to say that its the fault of the Americans it sounds like your implying all Americans, even if they are agains't this war and didn't vote for the politicians who started it. (Also remember the 2000 election, where it appears the vote counters and the politicians decided the election, as opposed to the voters.) Do you think the people should have a revolution? Well that might work if it weren't for the fact that most people wouldn't be a part of it, and the people who revolted agains't our government would probably either A) Become part of Americas huge prison system or B) Become dead. Peace, HN-

Stephanie S.

Of course they care, silly! It's a necessary evil, don'tcha know?

9556 total KIA or Wounded in Action since the begining of Operations Enduring Freedom & Iraqi Freedom - as of November 27, 2004

I feel for the after effects of this war on the soldiers who will hopefully return home when/if ever, this is all over. PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder is debilitating.

peace

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"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." —George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 (Listen to audio)