Pace of U.S. deaths on the rise in battle for Iraq

By key measures of the level of insurgent violence against American forces in Iraq – numbers of dead, wounded and insurgent attacks – the situation has grown worse since summer.

While those numbers don’t tell the full story of the conflict in Iraq, they suggest insurgents are growing more proficient, even as the size of the U.S. force increases and U.S. commanders succeed in soliciting more help from ordinary Iraqis.

For example:

* The U.S. military suffered at least 348 deaths in Iraq over the final four months of the year, more than in any other similar period since the invasion in March 2003.

The number of wounded surpassed 10,000, with more than a quarter injured in the last four months as direct combat, roadside bombs and suicide attacks escalated. When President Bush, aboard the Everett-based USS Abraham Lincoln, declared on May 1, 2003, that major combat operations were over, the number wounded stood at just 542.

* The number of attacks on U.S. and allied troops grew from an estimated 1,400 in September to 1,600 in October and 1,950 in November. A year earlier, the attacks numbered 649 in September, 896 in October and 864 in November.

Pentagon statistics show that for all of 2004, at least 838 U.S. troops died in Iraq. Of that total, more than 700 were killed in action, by far the highest number of American battlefield deaths since at least 1980, the first year the Pentagon compiled all-service casualty statistics.

It almost certainly is the highest death total for any year since the Vietnam War.

U.S. deaths averaged 62 per month through the first half of the year. But since June 28, when U.S. officials restored Iraqi sovereignty and dissolved the U.S. civilian occupation authority, that average has jumped to about 78.

Deaths among U.S. National Guard and reserve troops are rising, reaching a single-month peak of 27 in November. At least 17 have been killed this month. Nearly 200 Guard and reserve troops have died since the war began, and more than one-third of those deaths happened in the past four months.

U.S. commanders insist they are making progress, in part by taking the fight more directly to the insurgents. And they remain hopeful that more U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces will join the fight soon.

Some observers are more doubtful.

“The prospects in Iraq are grim,” Dan Goure, an analyst at the private Lexington Institute think tank in Washington, D.C., said Thursday. He assessed the conflict as a standoff, with no clear indication that either side will achieve victory in the coming year.

“Neither side can truly come to grips with the other so far and defeat them,” Goure said.

Meanwhile, three militant groups warned Iraqis against voting in Jan. 30 elections, saying Thursday that people participating in the “dirty farce” risked attack. All 700 employees of the electoral commission in Mosul reportedly resigned after being threatened.

The warning came a day after insurgents in Mosul, which has seen increased violence in recent weeks, launched a highly coordinated assault on a U.S. military outpost. The United States said 25 insurgents were believed slain and one American soldier was killed in the battle, which involved strafing runs by U.S. warplanes.

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