2007 the deadliest year for troops in Iraq

Published 11:32 pm Tuesday, November 6, 2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The U.S. military announced Tuesday that five soldiers and a sailor had been killed a day earlier, making 2007 the deadliest year for American troops since the start of the war in Iraq.

The record death toll of at least 853 U.S. military personnel killed this year underscores the high cost of the American troop increase, launched in February, which has begun to drive down the sectarian violence that once gripped much of the country.

“The strategy was to interject our soldiers between the Iraqi citizens and the terrorists, insurgents and militias,” said Lt. Col. Douglas Ollivant, chief of plans for American forces in Baghdad. “A regrettable consequence of that is your casualties go up.”

But the grim milestone belied a much more optimistic trend: Troop casualties have declined sharply since early summer.

Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl, a battalion commander in western Baghdad, said fighting in the spring had helped secure local neighborhoods. He said there had not been a roadside bomb attack in his area of operations for three months and no mortar or rocket attacks since July.

“In general, the area is quiet,” Kuehl wrote in an e-mail. “The past year has been an emotional roller coaster. I have had some of the worst days of my life … but I also have felt a strong sense of accomplishment.

“I am confident that we have established a much more secure environment for the people we have been tasked to protect,” Kuehl added. “However, a part of me is afraid to believe what we have accomplished, knowing what it has cost to get us to today.”

The deaths of the six troops Monday were a collective reminder of the dangers that the U.S. military still faces in Iraq.

In the northern province of Tamim, four soldiers were killed by an explosion near their vehicle while they conducted combat operations, the military said. In nearby Salahuddin province, a sailor was killed by an explosion, it said.

And in western Anbar province, once a stronghold of Sunni extremism but now relatively calm, the military said a soldier was killed while conducting combat operations.

The attacks brought the total death toll for American troops in Iraq this year so far to 853, higher than the 850 killed in 2004, when most of the casualties came during large-scale conventional battles.

Col J.B. Burton, commander of the Dagger Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, based in northwestern Baghdad, said pitched fighting in May and June was a necessary part of the U.S. counterinsurgency plan.

“We had to get off these bases and get into the neighborhoods where the enemy was,” he said. “We saw an increase in violence, but it enabled us talk to citizens and cause al-Qaida to lose control of their sanctuaries to the point where they’re ineffective.”

The Sunni insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq has asserted responsibility for some of the worst violence in the country.

In June, Burton’s unit was seeing up to 600 violent events a day and more than 50 U.S. soldiers killed or wounded every month. Now the numbers are dramatically lower.

“Our last combat-related death — knock on wood — was in September,” Burton said.

Across Baghdad, the number of American troops killed has plummeted from 58 in both May and June to 14 last month, according to Ollivant. “It looks like the beginning of a long-term trend to us, and we are, as we always say, cautiously optimistic,” he said.

“We suspected we were going to have to pay a price up front as the cost of implementing” the counterinsurgency strategy, Ollivant said. “That is regrettable, and we miss every one we lost. But from where we sit now, it looks like those sacrifices have paid off.”