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-- US, Iraqi civilian deaths fall sharply
US, Iraqi civilian deaths fall sharply
BAGHDAD - Deaths among American forces and Iraqi civilians fell dramatically last month to their lowest levels in more than a year, according to figures compiled by the U.S. military, the Iraqi government and The Associated Press.
The decline signaled a U.S. success in bringing down violence in Baghdad and surrounding regions since Washington completed its infusion of 30,000 more troops on June 15.
A total of 64 American forces died in September � the lowest monthly toll since July 2006.
The decline in Iraqi civilian deaths was even more dramatic, falling from 1,975 in August to 922 last month, a decline of 53.3 percent. The breakdown in September was 844 civilians and 78 police and Iraqi soldiers, according to Iraq's ministries of Health, Interior and Defense.
In August, AP figures showed 1,809 civilians and 155 police and Iraqi soldiers were killed in sectarian violence.
The civilian death toll has not been so low since June 2006, when 847 Iraqis died.
"There is no silver bullet or one thing that equates as a reason to the drop in Iraqi and Coalition casualties and deaths," said Col. Steven Boylan, spokesman for U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus.
But he credited increased U.S. troop strength, saying that has allowed American forces to step up operations against al-Qaida in Iraq.
In violence Monday, a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives just outside the gates of Mosul University, killing an agriculture professor, said police spokesman Abdul Karim al-Jbouri said. Less than an hour later, police found a second bomb in an empty car nearby and safely detonated it.
Over the weekend, U.S. and Iraqi forces killed more than 60 insurgent and militia fighters in intense battles, with most of the casualties believed to have been al-Qaida militants, officials said.
U.S. aircraft killed more than 20 al-Qaida in Iraq fighters who opened fire on an American air patrol northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. command said Sunday.
The firefight between U.S. aircraft and the insurgent fighters occurred Saturday after the aircraft observed about 25 people carrying AK-47 assault rifles � one brandishing a rocket-propelled grenade � into a palm grove, the military said.
"Shortly after spotting the men, the aircraft were fired upon by the insurgent fighters," it said.
The command said more than 20 of the group were killed and four vehicles were destroyed. No Iraqi civilians or U.S. soldiers were hurt.
Iraq's Defense Ministry said in an e-mail Sunday that Iraqi soldiers had killed 44 "terrorists" over the past 24 hours. The operations were centered in Salahuddin and Diyala provinces and around the city of Kirkuk, where the ministry said its soldiers had killed 40 and arrested eight. It said 52 fighters were arrested altogether.
The ministry did not further identify those killed, but use of the word "terrorists" normally indicates al-Qaida.
The U.S. Embassy, meanwhile, joined a broad swath of Iraqi politicians � both Shiite and Sunni � in criticizing a nonbinding U.S. Senate resolution seen here as a recipe for splitting the country along sectarian and ethnic lines.
The Senate resolution, adopted last week, suggests Iraqi government and parliament adhere to their constitution � if they can agree. The basic law allows for a loose confederation of regions under a limited central government, leaving the bulk of power with the regions. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., was a prime sponsor.
In a highly unusual, unsigned statement, the U.S. Embassy said resolution would seriously hamper Iraq's future stability: "Our goal in Iraq remains the same: a united, democratic, federal Iraq that can govern, defend, and sustain itself."
The war must be won...
The terrorists are gone. Oh wait...They're there because we are...
Perhaps Ramadan had something to do with it
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| Originally posted by Krypton The war must be won... The terrorists are gone. Oh wait...They're there because we are... |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Sunsnail Perhaps Ramadan had something to do with it |
Oh, wait ... so since the civilian casualties have dropped off, we can now completely forget about the 1 million+ civilians who have died so far under US occupation ... those deaths never happened, and now the 10,000 civilian deaths a month is just fine and dandy. Problem solved!
I bet that when they were doing those numbers in June 2006 for lowest casualties total, they didnt consider the upcoming months and more violence ... and heck, Ramadan is just about here. Give it a few months, and everyone will forget about this story, just like they did in June of 2006 ...
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| Originally posted by LatinLover I dont mean to offend anyone, but if you think that our troops withdrawal will prompt retreat from the resistance side as well, you must be stoned or stupid |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Krypton I don't care if the resistance retreats. It's an Iraqi matter. an IRAQI matter.. |
Dude I thought that some people were totally flawed with their view on the issue. I must say, you are by far the the worse 
Releaseing some pressure about Oil.
| quote: |
| Greenspan admits Iraq was about oil, as deaths put at 1.2m Peter Beaumont and Joanna Walters in New York Sunday September 16, 2007 The Observer The man once regarded as the world's most powerful banker has bluntly declared that the Iraq war was 'largely' about oil. Appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1987 and retired last year after serving four presidents,Alan Greenspan has been the leading Republican economist for a generation and his utterings instantly moved world markets. In his long-awaited memoir - out tomorrow in the US - Greenspan, 81, who served as chairman of the US Federal Reserve for almost two decades, writes:'I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.' In The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, he is also crystal clear on his opinion of his last two bosses, harshly criticising George W Bush for 'abandoning fiscal constraint' and praising Bill Clinton's anti-deficit policies during the Nineties as 'an act of political courage'. He also speaks of Clinton's sharp and 'curious' mind, and 'old-fashioned' caution about the dangers of debt. Greenspan's damning comments about the war come as a survey of Iraqis, which was released last week, claims that up to 1.2 million people may have died because of the conflict in Iraq - lending weight to a 2006 survey in the Lancet that reported similarly high levels. More than one million deaths were already being suggested by anti-war campaigners, but such high counts have consistently been rejected by US and UK officials. The estimates, extrapolated from a sample of 1,461 adults around the country, were collected by a British polling agency, ORB, which asked a random selection of Iraqis how many people living in their household had died as a result of the violence rather than from natural causes. Previous estimates gave a range between 390,000 and 940,000, the most prominent of which - collected by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and reported in the Lancet in October 2006 - suggested 654,965 deaths. Although the household survey was carried out by a polling organisation, rather than researchers, it has again raised the spectre that the 2003 invasion has caused a far more substantial death toll than officially acknowledged. The ORB survey follows an earlier report by the organisation which suggested that one in four Iraqi adults had lost a family member to violence. The latest survey suggests that in Baghdad that number is as high as one in two. If true, these latest figures would suggest the death toll in Iraq now exceeds that of the Rwandan genocide in which about 800,000 died. The Lancet survey was criticised by some experts and by George Bush and British officials. In private, however, the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser Sir Roy Anderson described it as 'close to best practice'. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by LatinLover Dude I thought that some people were totally flawed with their view on the issue. I must say, you are by far the the worse |
A one month decline is wonderful, just wonderful. Of course everyone including Bush knew full well that the SURGE! would temporarily decrease death counts, which is in of itself promising. It was also predicted well in advance based on prior movement patterns that the insurgents would merely blend right in and/or move towards other territories. They are well experienced in the game of whackamole, which we cannot sustain because the SURGE! cannot be maintained secondary to tour limits of 15 months, and consequently the inevitable redeployment of the SURGE! forces will begin in a few months. Which brings us back to where we started oh so very soon.
Then what?
Oh, and considering there's likely still "thousands" leaving Iraq every day:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15247511/
That certainly leaves a few less to kill, don't it? The numbers I have are almost 2 million from last January:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01...102refugees.php
And things only seemingly went up on displaced Iraqi citizens since the troop SURGE!:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08...24displaced.php
And finally, let's take a broader perspective and compare deaths by year:
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| U.S. Casualties By Calendar Year Year US Deaths US Wounded 2003--486------- 2,408 2004--849------- 8,003 2005--846------- 5,948 2006--822------- 6,398 2007--801------- 4,996 Total 3804------ 27753 http://icasualties.org/oif/ |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by LatinLover I dont mean to offend anyone, but if you think that our troops withdrawal will prompt retreat from the resistance side as well, you must be stoned or stupid |
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