WASHINGTON – American casualties in Iraq are mounting as the U.S.-led offensive in Fallujah unfolds. As of Tuesday evening there, 10 American troops had been killed in action and an undisclosed number wounded – a toll described by a senior U.S. commander as very light.
The U.S. military command in Baghdad said that besides the 10 U.S. troops killed in Fallujah, two members of the Iraqi security forces also had been killed. A brief U.S. military statement said there could be delays in reporting combat casualties in Fallujah “in order to prevent the anti-Iraqi forces and other terrorist elements from gaining useful battlefield intelligence.”
Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the senior American commander for the Fallujah operation, said he was pleased that U.S. casualties so far were relatively light, considering the dangers of urban combat.
Metz said insurgent casualties were “significantly higher than I expected.” Most of the rebel force, estimated at between 2,000 and 3,000, was “fighting hard but not to the death,” he said.
Tommy Franks, the retired four-star Army general who commanded U.S. forces when President Bush ordered the invasion in March 2003, said Tuesday it was too early to conclude that American casualties would remain light.
“There can be an inclination to say, ‘Hey, this is going just right.’ I’d caution against that,” he said. “This enemy is capable of putting up a big fight.”
On Monday, 11 U.S. service members died across Iraq – among the highest for a single day since last spring – as the insurgents escalated the violence in Baghdad and elsewhere.
The death toll for Iraqi civilians has been higher in recent days than the U.S. death count, as it has been through much of the war. Many have been killed by car bombs.
Dan Goure, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute think tank, said Iraqis present an easier target for the insurgents, and he expects them to continue to bear the brunt of the violence.
Goure said the relatively light American casualties in the opening days of the Fallujah offensive may not hold as the fighting escalates. But he noted that so far the toll is less severe than last April when 135 U.S. troops died, the worst month of the war.
“If casualties in November start approaching that number, then there’s some significant reason to worry,” Goure said.
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