More Americans have now died in Iraq than in the attacks of 9/11, writes robert fox |
|
On the last day of 2006, America recorded the 3,000th soldier to die in action in Iraq. The statistic is hardly acknowledged by the US administration and media, still wallowing in Saddam's execution.
Its significance is not lost on the American public, however. The figure surpasses the 2,997 who died - or went missing, presumed dead - on 9/11.
But for the huge improvements in battlefield surgery in the past decade, the death toll in Iraq would have been much higher. Experts suggest that if combat recovery conditions were the same now as they were in Vietnam, the death toll might have been ten times greater – around 30,000 for the Americans and approaching 1,500 for British forces, who by the end of 2006 had lost 127 troops (half the 255 dead in the three-month Falklands War). |
|
 |
 |
 |
| The US casualty toll in Vietnam was massaged, mangled and revised up and down at
the whim of command |
|
|
The Vietnam comparison is important. The Americans played the numbers game badly in Vietnam; the real death toll – reckoned to be 58,000-plus between 1959 and 1975 - was massaged, mangled and revised up and down at the whim of the command.
The problem in Iraq is that so much of the data of the conflict just doesn't get reported at all. The 3,000 figure masks a recent escalation in violence and death on all sides. In December, the US lost 110 military, making it their worst month in two years. The Iraqis themselves may now be losing 1,000-2,000 a month, with Sunni and Shia militias killing each other, their proxies and civilians with growing intensity.
According to well-placed intelligence sources, allied special forces, including the British SAS, are now carrying out targeted assassinations against leaders of the insurgency on a nightly basis. There is, of course, no official acknowledgement of this - nor any indication that the raids are yielding measurable results. 
FIRST POSTED JANUARY 2, 2007
|
