Bush warns of more casualties as US death toll in Iraq hits 2,000

THE US military death toll in the 2 1/2 year Iraq war reached the milestone of 2,000 last night with the announcement by the Pentagon of a US soldier who died at a hospital in Texas over the weekend.

The Pentagon said Staff Sgt George Alexander Jr., 34, of Killeen, Texas, died at Brooke Army Medical Centre in San Antonio, Texas, last Saturday of injuries sustained on October 17 in Samarra, Iraq, when a roadside bomb planted by insurgents detonated near his Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

In the Iraq war, which began in March 2003, more than 15,000 US troops also have been wounded in action. The Iraqi death toll is unknown, but estimates range much higher.

Iraq Body Count, a British research group that compiles its figures from reports by the major news agencies and British and US newspapers, has said as many as 30,051 Iraqis have been killed.

Other estimates range as high as 100,000. Earlier yesterday, US President George W Bush yesterday warned his nation to brace for an even higher casualty count as the mission there has more work remaining to be successful. “The terrorists are as brutal an enemy as we have ever faced, unconstrained by any notion of common humanity and by the rules of warfare,” Mr Bush said in a speech before the Joint Armed Forces Officers’ Wives’ luncheon, held at Bolling Air Force Base.

“No one should underestimate the difficulties ahead.”

But, he added: “Nor should they overlook the advantages we bring to this fight. ... Some observers look at the job ahead and adopt a self-defeating pessimism. It’s not justified.”

Meanwhile, a poll yesterday suggested that for the first time, a majority of Americans believe the Iraq war was the “wrong thing to do”.

Of those asked in the Harris Interactive survey for the Wall Street Journal, 53% felt “taking military action against Iraq was the... wrong thing to do”, against 34% who thought it was correct, the newspaper said.

The percentage of people opposing the US-led invasion of the country was up from a figure of 49% in a parallel poll in September, rising above 50% for the first time since the surveys began.