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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jay the Obscure: [QB] Recently, the United States reached another one of those milestones in the current military conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq that people seem to measure. [QUOTE][URL=http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060922/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/911_times_two]War price on U.S. lives equal to 9/11[/URL] By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Now the death toll is 9/11 times two. U.S. military deaths from Iraq and Afghanistan now match those of the most devastating terrorist attack in America's history, the trigger for what came next. Add casualties from chasing terrorists elsewhere in the world, and the total has passed the Sept. 11 figure. The latest milestone for a country at war comes without commemoration. It also may well come without the precision of knowing who is the 2,973rd man or woman of arms to die in conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, or just when it happens. The terrorist attacks killed 2,973 victims in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Not for the first time, war that was started to answer death has resulted in at least as much death for the country that was first attacked, quite apart from the higher numbers of enemy and civilians killed. Historians note that this grim accounting is not how the success or failure of warfare is measured, and that the reasons for conflict are broader than what served as the spark. The body count from World War II was far higher for Allied troops than for the crushed Axis. Americans lost more men in each of a succession of Pacific battles than the 2,390 people who died at Pearl Harbor in the attack that made the U.S. declare war on Japan. The U.S. lost 405,399 in the theaters of World War II. Despite a death toll that pales next to that of the great wars, one casualty milestone after another has been observed and reflected upon this time, especially in Iraq. There was the benchmark of seeing more U.S. troops die in the occupation than in the swift and successful invasion. And the benchmarks of 1,000 dead, 2,000, 2,500. Now this. ---- As of Friday, the U.S. death toll stood at 2,693 in the Iraq war and 278 in and around Afghanistan, for a total of 2,971, two short of the Sept. 11 attacks. The Pentagon reports 56 military deaths and one civilian Defense Department death in other parts of the world from Operation Enduring Freedom, the anti-terrorism war distinct from Iraq. Altogether, 3,028 have died abroad since Sept. 11, 2001. [b]The civilian toll in Iraq hit record highs in the summer, with 6,599 violent deaths reported in July and August alone, the United Nations said this week.[/b][/QUOTE]*Emphasis added. The violence might have had something the Washington [i]Post[/i] reported: [QUOTE] [URL=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/22/AR2006092200880_pf.html]U.S. says 3,000 more Iraqi troops needed in Baghdad[/URL] WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers do not want to leave other parts of their country to serve in Baghdad, leaving security efforts in the violent capital short by 3,000 Iraqi troops, a senior U.S. commander said on Friday. "I would tell you I need more Iraqi security forces," U.S. Army Maj. Gen. James Thurman, the U.S. military commander for Baghdad, told reporters at the Pentagon from Camp Liberty in the Iraqi capital. Thurman said that six Iraqi army battalions -- roughly 500 soldiers each -- that he has requested to reinforce Baghdad have not been provided by the Iraqi government. U.S. commanders have said sectarian violence in Baghdad between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims could lead to civil war if left unchecked. "Some of these battalions, when they were formed, were formed regionally. And some of the soldiers due to the distance did not want to travel into Baghdad," Thurman said. "And the minister of defense (Abdel Qader Jassim) is working with that." U.S. commanders have stated that curbing sectarian violence in Baghdad has become the main effort of the 3-1/2-year-old war, more important than the long-running fight against Sunni Arab insurgents in vast Anbar province west of Baghdad. But only a relatively small portion of the 145,000-strong U.S. force and the 302,000-strong Iraqi government security forces are being devoted to the effort. Thurman said 15,000 U.S. troops, 9,000 Iraqi army soldiers, 12,000 Iraqi national police and 22,000 local police are operating in Baghdad. Thurman said he was not disappointed by the failure of the Iraqi government to get the requested soldiers to Baghdad, but added the U.S. military was working to make Iraq's army "more mobile." ----[/QUOTE] [/QB][/QUOTE]
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