Every time it seems as if we’ve turned a corner in Iraq and that we’ll finally start to see progress in protecting our troops and bringing a level of stability to the country, we learn of discouraging news about the series of attacks U.S. forces are enduring every day.
The Washington Post noted yesterday that the number of U.S. troops killed or wounded in Iraq has “more than doubled in the past four months compared with the four months preceding them.”
From Sept. 1 through Friday, 145 service members were killed in action in Iraq, compared with 65 from May 1 to Aug. 30. The two four-month intervals cover counterinsurgency operations, far costlier than major combat operations, which President Bush declared over on May 1.
Increases in those wounded in action have been equally dramatic this fall. Since Sept. 1, 1,209 soldiers have received battlefield wounds, more than twice the 574 wounded in action from May 1 through Aug. 30.
Even the capture of Saddam Hussein has not had the effect we had hoped for. In the two weeks following Hussein’s arrest, 14 soldiers have been killed in action and 105 have been wounded. (The Post article cites 12 deaths, but two more U.S. troops were killed the day after the article was written.)
The Post quoted retired Lt. Col. Andrew F. Krepinevich, director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, as saying the casualties are not “mission-threatening,” and that, “It would take years at this casualty rate to arrive at the number killed in an hour at the World Trade Center.”
What a maddening comparison. Yet again, a supporter of the war in Iraq wants to try, in vain, to connect Iraq with the terrorist attacks of 9/11. It’s as if they hope saying it over and over again will somehow make it true, or more likely, that its constant repetition will continue to confuse the public.