U.S. Casualties in Iraq Rise Sharply

The number of US troops wounded in Iraq has surged to it's highest monthly total in two years as US forces attempt to halt the sectarian violence that their own commanders now warn could spiral into civil war.

Last month, 776 U.S. troops were wounded in action in Iraq, the highest number since the military assault to retake the insurgent-held city of Fallujah in November 2004, according to Defense Department data. It was the fourth-highest monthly total since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The sharp increase in American wounded -- with nearly 300 more in the first week of October -- is a grim measure of the degree to which the U.S. military has been thrust into the lead of the effort to stave off full-scale civil war in Iraq, military officials and experts say. Beyond Baghdad, Marines battling Sunni insurgents in Iraq's western province of Anbar last month also suffered their highest number of wounded in action since late 2004.

Whilst the media concentrate on the 2,700 troops killed in Iraq since the war began, the number of wounded is a much better indicator for of the levels of resistance that the US army faces. There have now been 20,000 American casualties since the conflict began.

The surge in wounded comes as U.S. commanders issue increasingly dire warnings about the threat of civil war in Iraq, all but ruling out cuts in the current contingent of more than 140,000 U.S. troops before the spring of 2007. Last month Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top commander in the Middle East, said "sectarian tensions, if left unchecked, could be fatal to Iraq," making it imperative that the U.S. military now focus its "main effort" squarely on Baghdad.

Thousands of additional U.S. troops have been ordered to Baghdad since July to reinforce Iraqi soldiers and police who failed to halt -- or were in some cases complicit in -- a wave of hundreds of killings of Iraqi civilians by rival Sunni and Shiite groups.

In March US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated that civil war in Iraq would be a problem that would be dealt with by the new Iraqi army rather than by US forces and doubted that a civil war would even occur.

"In a sense, the Baghdad security plan is a complete repudiation of the earlier Rumsfeld doctrine where he said the Iraqis would prevent the civil war," said O'Hanlon.

Nor is there any sign that casualty levels are set to decrease:

"September was horrific" in terms of the toll of wounded, and if the early October trend continues, this month could be "the worst month of the war," said John E. Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Virginia-based Web site that tracks defense issues.

At times like this I am genuinely baffled by reports that the Republicans want to fight the mid-term elections on the subject of security. Their record on security is not a good one.

The worsening violence in Baghdad has led some Pentagon officials to criticize decisions by the U.S. military since early 2005 to transfer responsibility for security in large swaths of Baghdad to Iraqi forces while cutting back on American patrols.

"We made decisions to take an indirect approach, which is great if you want low U.S. casualty rates," said the Pentagon official. However, he said: "Passing responsibility to Iraqis does not equal defeating terrorists and neutralizing the insurgency. Period."

When will this famed Iraqi army step up to the plate? And if they haven't managed to train them efficiently after three long years, how long will it take to train them? How many more young Americans will have to be horrifically wounded before the US begin to question the Bush doctrine of "staying the course"?

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