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Posted on Tue, Nov. 06, 2007 10:15 PMreprint or license print email Digg it del.icio.us AIM
2007 deadliest year in Iraq for U.S.
By DAMIEN CAVE
The New York Times
Karim Kadim, Pool
Lt. Cmdr. Keith Dowling, the officer in charge of the Multi-National Corps-Iraq's Combined Explosive Exploitation Cell, points to some of the weaponry seized by the U.S. army in recent operations on display at a news conference in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday. Nov. 6, 2007. Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, director of the Multi-National Force-Iraq's communications division said Iran appears to have kept its promise to stop the flow into Iraq of bomb-making materials and other weaponry that Washington says has inflamed insurgent violence and caused many American troop casualties.
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BAGHDAD | Six U.S. soldiers were killed Monday in three attacks, the military said Tuesday, making 2007 the deadliest year of the war for Americans.
According to a tally by the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a Web site that tracks military deaths, the latest deaths bring the number of American troop deaths this year to 854 — five more than in 2004.
Also Tuesday, military officials announced the discovery of a mass grave holding the bodies of 22 Iraqis north of Fallujah.
The military also said nine Iranians being held in Iraq would soon be released, including two detained during a January raid of a consulate office in Erbil.
Five of the American soldiers killed Monday died in two roadside bomb attacks near Kirkuk, said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, director of the communications division of the Multinational Force-Iraq, the formal name for the U.S.-led forces.
A sixth soldier died Monday during combat operations in Anbar province, according to a military statement.
The deaths come only a few days after the military announced a steep drop in the rate of U.S. deaths this year. In October, 38 American service members died in Iraq, one of the lowest counts since the start of the war, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.
Despite the decline, U.S. commanders acknowledged that 2007 would be deadlier than 2004, when 849 Americans died.
Military officials attribute the rise this year to an expanded troop presence during the surge, which brought more than 165,000 troops to Iraq and sent units out of large bases and into more dangerous communities.
Commanders maintain that despite the lives lost, the strategy has brought improved security to the country and “tactical momentum” that could stabilize Iraq permanently.
The potential release of the Iranians may reflect American approval of some signs that Iran is cooperating with the demand that it stanch the flow of materials to Iraq used to make deadly roadside bombs known as explosively formed projectiles, or EFPs.
Smith said the EFP components found recently during raids did “not appear to have arrived here in Iraq after those pledges were made,” suggesting that Iran has limited trafficking the weapon parts across the border after promising to do so.
American commanders have stopped short of declaring that Iran has complied with U.S. demands. Smith on Tuesday described the plan to release the nine Iranian prisoners not as a diplomatic reward, but rather as the perfunctory end to a criminal investigation.
“These individuals have no continuing value, nor do they pose a further threat to Iraqi security,” he said.
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