Pentagon says military deaths in Iraq hit 2,500
(AP)
Updated: 2006-06-15 21:16 'ADAPTIVE AND RESILIENT'
The steadily mounting U.S. death toll reflects an insurgency that has not
buckled despite facing off against a military super power, analysts said.
"They've been very adaptive and resilient," said defense analyst Ted
Carpenter of the Cato Institute think tank. "That's one of the chief problems
that an intervening force faces in any counterinsurgency war. You're fighting on
the adversary's home turf and essentially all the enemy has to do is to out-wait
the intervening power."
Military medical experts say the U.S. death toll would be even higher if not
for advances in medical care and body armor that keep alive badly wounded troops
who would have died in previous wars.
They point to: advances in body armor, with torso armor better protecting the
chest and abdomen, heart and lungs and helmets better protecting the brain;
improved in-country surgical capabilities allowing patients to be stabilized and
quickly flown out of Iraq; and better prepared battlefield medics.
The deadliest month of the war was November 2004, when 137 U.S. troops died
in a month when U.S. forces conducted a fierce offensive in the city of Falluja
in the western Anbar province to deny Sunni Muslim insurgents a safe haven.
U.S. fatalities had dropped in five straight months from last November
through this March, as insurgents appeared to focus more of their violence on
Iraqi civilians and American-trained Iraqi government security forces.
But the U.S. death tolls in April and May were above average, and the
Pentagon has acknowledged a recent surge in insurgent violence.
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