When President Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1, 138 American soldiers had died, in fighting or by accident.
Nearly four months later, the death toll has nearly doubled, making it clear that keeping the peace and rebuilding the country will cost far more American lives than winning the war.
The US military reported the deaths of two more soldiers on Sunday, raising the US death toll to 275. Of those, 137 occurred since May 1, including 65 American soldiers killed in combat in an escalating guerrilla war.
With the next death of an American soldier the toll from major combat and the toll post-major combat will be equal.
"We knew all along that post-combat operations would be equally hazardous, but in a different way," said Maj. William Thurmond, spokesman for Coalition command in Baghdad.
Thurmond said that as early as June 2002, US war planners anticipated that establishing stability in Iraq would be a brutal task.
During the initial combat stage, US troops' main enemy was conventional soldiers, but now they're being attacked by guerrilla fighters — at times in densely populated, urban areas, Thurmond said.
"This is a different environment, during full-scale combat the enemy was uniformed and organized," he said. "The enemy now is much more malicious and attacks from the shadows."
Guerrilla fighters try to ambush soldiers by firing rocket-propelled grenades, Kalashnikov rifles and detonating roadside bombs. The attacks come every two hours on average. Combat continues for US troops, Thurmond said, but their added role as peacekeepers means they can no longer use the full range of American military might.
"Now we have to be effective militarily but we also have a responsibility to protect the people," Thurmond said. "We can't indiscriminately use the firepower at our disposal."
As the US death toll climbed over the weekend, Bush stepped up his campaign to persuade more countries to send troops to Iraq and join the US-led Coalition.
"We do need and welcome more foreign troops into Iraq and there will be more foreign troops into Iraq," Bush told reporters in Seattle, adding troops sent over would focus on protecting Iraq's infrastructure to free up the US "hunter teams."
Britain, America's biggest ally in Iraq suffered new losses of its own Saturday after three of its soldiers were killed and one was seriously wounded in an attack in the southern city of Basra, the British military reported. The deaths brought the number of Britons killed to 48 — 10 of them in combat since May 1. Denmark's military has also reported one death.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned Friday that the United States' attempts to bring in soldiers from other countries to bolster its troops were likely to fail unless Washington agrees to a UN-authorized force that shares decision-making with Coalition forces.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said on a visit to the United Nations on Thursday that the United States would not cede any military power as France and other nations have demanded.
Meanwhile at home, Republicans and Democrats alike say Washington should reconsider its troop strength following the unrelenting ambushes and a series of sabotage attacks on the Jordanian Embassy, oil export pipelines and water lines in Iraq culminating in the Tuesday's truck bombing at UN headquarters.
The US invaded Iraq using a force less than half the size of what it deployed in 1991 for the first Gulf War. However, its objective — occupying the entire country — was more ambitious than 12 years ago when it sought only to drive Iraqi forces from Kuwait. A total of 147 US soldiers died in that war.
"We have to evaluate whether we have enough people, whether we have the right kind of people and whether we are spending enough money, and I think it's appropriate to make that evaluation," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. and a former Vietnam POW, told reporters at Baghdad International Airport last week.
Some soldiers' families have been blunt saying changes must be made to better protect their loved ones serving in Iraq.
"They need to get more help (for the troops) or maybe get them out of there," said Ronda Quarterman of Galesburg, Illinois, whose son Chad is an infantry soldier in Iraq. "We're concerned that (Bush) said it is over when we still have guys that are being killed."
(China Daily August 26, 2003)
