US death rate 'highest since Iraq war'

More US troops were killed in combat in Iraq over the past four months – at least 334 through January 31 – than in any comparable stretch since the war began, according to an analysis of casualty records.

Not since the bloody battle for Fallujah in 2004 has the death toll climbed so high, according to the analysis by the Associated Press.

The reason is that US soldiers and Marines are fighting more battles in the streets of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and other cities. And while hostile forces are using a variety of weapons, the top killer is the roadside bomb.

In some respects it is the urban warfare that US commanders thought they had managed largely to avoid after US troops entered Baghdad in early April 2003 and quickly brought down Saddam Hussein’s government.

And with President George Bush now sending thousands more US troops to Baghdad and western Anbar province, despite opposition in Congress and the American public’s increasing war weariness, the prospect of even higher casualties looms.

The shadowy uprising has managed to counter or compensate for every new US military technique for defeating roadside bombs, which over time have proliferated and grown increasingly powerful.

The US has spent billions trying to counter that threat and the Bush administration in its 2008 budget request to Congress this week asked for another £3 billion to find more effective defences against it.

The increasingly urban nature of the war is reflected in the discovery of a higher percentage of US deaths in Baghdad lately. Over the course of the war, at least 1,142 US troops have died in Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency, through February 6, according to an AP count.

That compares with 713 in Baghdad. But since December 28 last year, there were more in Baghdad than in Anbar – 33 to 31.

The surge in combat deaths comes as the Pentagon begins adding 21,500 troops in Iraq as part of Bush’s new strategy for stabilising the country. Most are going to Baghdad, but some are being sent Anbar.

With the build-up, US forces will be operating more aggressively in Baghdad as they try to curb sectarian bloodshed, a tactical shift that senior military officials say raises the prospect of even higher US casualties.

“There’s clearly going to be an increased risk in this area,” Admiral William Fallon, Bush’s choice to be the next commander of US forces in the Middle East, told his Senate confirmation hearing last week.

Risk already is extraordinarily high from known threats, including roadside bombs. Defence secretary Robert Gates said on Friday that 70% of US casualties were caused by such bombs.

He said that lately Iran, allegedly in league with renegade Shiite groups in southern Iraq, had had a hand in supplying a more lethal version so powerful it could destroy a US Abrams battle tank, which is shielded with heavy armour.

Hostile forces also have had more success lately shooting down US helicopters, General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged yesterday.

He said four US helicopters in recent weeks had been shot down by small arms fire, including a Black Hawk in which all 12 National Guard soldiers aboard were killed.

There have been troubling new twists to some other attacks, including the sneak attack in Karbala that killed five US soldiers; four of them were abducted and shot at close range by unknown gunmen. US officials say they are studying the possibility that Iranian agents either planned or executed the January 20 attack.

Less than a year ago, US commanders were anticipating a different scenario, starting a US withdrawal and a more central role for Iraqi troops in battling the insurgents in major cities. Instead, US troops had to step in more directly as the Iraqis came up short, particularly in Baghdad.

Now, under a new approach announced by Bush on January 10, US troops will be paired up with Iraqi brigades in each of nine districts across Baghdad, rather than operating mainly from large US bases.

The recent rise in US combat deaths has developed with relatively little notice in Congress, which has focused on the broader issue of whether to begin withdrawing forces and, now, whether to oppose Bush’s troop build-up.

The American public has clearly soured over the war. In an AP-Ipsos poll taken from January 8-10 , 62% said they thought, looking back, that it had been a mistake to go to war, while 35% said invading was the right decision.