Nothing But Politics

[Rick Faurot]

September is 2nd-Deadliest Month in Iraq this Year
By Robert Burns
The Associated Press

Monday 04 October 2004

Washington - September was the second-deadliest month of the year for U.S. forces in Iraq and brought to nearly 500 the number who have died since the insurgency escalated in late March.

The Pentagon announced Sunday evening that two soldiers died late last week of injuries suffered earlier in the month, and another was killed Sept. 30 by a roadside bomb. That brought the month's death toll to 80, up from 65 in August and equal to the 80 who died in May.

The worst month of the year for U.S. troops in Iraq was April when 135 died in a wave of insurgent attacks. Some had hoped the violence would decrease after an interim Iraqi government was given sovereignty June 28, but the death toll has risen steadily since then.

Forty-two U.S. military deaths were recorded in June and 54 in July.

In remarks Monday to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the U.S. military death toll since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 exceeds 1,000. He did not specify the number of deaths in Iraq, but said "it is in freedom's defense" that U.S. troops are fighting there as well as in Afghanistan.

"Amid the losses, the ugliness, the car bombings, the beheadings, the task is to remain steadfast," he said in remarks prepared for delivery. "Picture the kind of world we would have if the extremists were to prevail."

In its Sunday evening announcements, the Pentagon said Spc. Allen Nolan, an Army Reserve soldier from Marietta, Ohio, died Saturday at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, of injuries sustained Sept. 18 in Balad, Iraq, when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb and then came under small arms fire. Nolan, 38, was with the Army Reserve's 660th Transportation Company at Zanesville, Ohio.

Army Staff Sgt. Mike A. Dennie, 31, of Fayetteville, N.C., died Friday in Balad from injuries sustained Sept. 22 in Baghdad when the driver of his vehicle pulled off the road and lost control, causing it to roll over. Dennie was with the 106th Finance Battalion from Kitzingen, Germany.

As of Monday, the U.S. military death toll since the Iraq invasion began in March 2003 stood at 1,058, the Pentagon says. The total includes three Defense Department civilians. Of the total, 917 have died since President Bush declared major combat operations over May 1, 2003.

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/100504V.shtml