Doug Lorimer
November was the deadliest month for the US occupation forces in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, with twice as many US soldiers dying as in October. At least 135 US troops died in November — the same number as last April, which had previously been the deadliest single month of the war.
In April and November, Iraqi resistance to US assaults on the rebel city of Fallujah were key factors in each month's spike in US combat fatalities, with at least 54 US troops dying in the US offensive that began on November 8 to recapture Fallujah.
On November 24, the Pentagon listed 1230 US military deaths in the Iraq war. It also listed at least 9300 US troops wounded in action, with at least 5000 of them too badly injured to return to duty. Around 850 US soldiers were reported to have been wounded in action during battle for Fallujah alone.
However, the November 21 edition of CBS television's 60 Minutes program revealed that it had received a letter from the Pentagon stating that since the Iraq war began, "More than 15,000 troops with so-called non-battle injuries and diseases have been evacuated from Iraq". These include serious injuries that arise from accidents (vehicular and otherwise), trauma and severe psychiatric problems. According to 60 Minutes, only 20% of the evacuees returned to their units in Iraq.
US combat fatalities have risen each month since the June 28 nominal handover of sovereignty to the US-installed Interim Government of Iraq. "It reflects the fact that the insurgency's been getting stronger and more effective month by month", Michael O'Hanlon, a defence analyst at the Brookings Institution, told the Knight Ridders newspaper chain on November 30.
While top US military officers in Fallujah claim their offensive against the city has "broken the back of the insurgency", Asia Times Online reported on December 2 that its sources in Baghdad "confirm that according to residents, the southern — and larger — part of Fallujah is still controlled by the resistance; the Americans control only the north and some eastern spots".
Furthermore, the US commanders' claim is contradicted by an assessment by US Marine Corps intelligence officers in Iraq, reported on by the November 18 New York Times, that said the anti-occupation insurgency had demonstrated" outstanding resilience" and would continue to grow despite the US destruction of Fallujah.
Consistent with this assessment, on December 1 the Pentagon announced it would escalate the size of its occupation force in Iraq by 12,000 troops — from 138,000 to at least 150,000 by the end of December. This means the number of troops will be the highest ever: higher than during the invasion.
Prior to the US presidential election, Bush administration officials had claimed that no extra US troops were needed in Iraq. They claimed that the existing troop level, supplemented by the puppet Iraqi security forces, could contain and defeat the Iraqi resistance.
However, the November 30 New York Times reported that US officials in Iraq had admitted that the Iraqi police and national guard were "foundering in the face of coordinated efforts to kill and intimidate them". The NYT reported that given "the weak performance of [the pro-US] Iraqi forces, any major withdrawal of American troops for at least a decade would invite chaos, a senior interior ministry official, whose name could not be used, said in an interview last week".
Iraqi casualties
While neither the Pentagon nor the IGI have bothered to count the number of Iraqi casualties since the war began, in late October, the British medical journal Lancet published a study that estimated there had been an extra 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths compared to the death rate in the preceding year, with the violence being the major cause of the increased death rate. According to the survey, most of the violent deaths have been caused by US aerial bombing.
The survey did not take samples from the Iraqi deaths in Fallujah. According to a report carried by the UN IRIN news agency on November 27, the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) estimates that at least 6000 Iraqis have died in Fallujah since the US offensive began on November 8.
Mohammed al Nuri, a spokesperson for the IRCS, said that moving around the city was very difficult because of the large number of dead bodies lying in the streets. "Bodies can be seen everywhere", Nuri said told IRIN after an IRCS convoy delivered thousands of food parcels, blankets, tents and medical supplies to the centre of the bombed-out city on November 23.
The IRCS estimated that at least 50,000 of Fallujah's 300,000 residents remained in the city when the US offensive began. It also estimated that up to 70% of the city's houses and shops had been destroyed by the US offensive, which involved massive aerial bombing and artillery shelling.
Violence is only one reason for the increase in the Iraqi death rate since the US invasion.
Deteriorating health
On November 29 the Britain-based medical charity Medact reported that the health of Iraq's people had deteriorated since the US-led invasion in March last year, both as a direct result of violence and through the collapse of medical facilities, public health provision and essential infrastructure such as water supplies.
Medics from the charity conducted surveys with international aid organisations and Iraqi health workers in September. They reported that the risk of death for Iraqis from violence in the 18 months after the US-led invasion was 58 times higher than in the 15 months before it, while the risk of death from all causes was 2.5 times higher after the invasion than before.
Medact said Iraq had also experienced an alarming recurrence of previously well-controlled communicable diseases, including acute respiratory infections, diarrhoea and typhoid, particularly among children.
On November 22, the Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science, a Norwegian research group, reported that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children between the ages of six months and five years has doubled since the US-led invasion in March last year, from 4% to 7.7%, and resulting in one in every eight Iraqi children dying before they reach the age of five. The findings were based on a survey conducted in April and May of 22,000 Iraqi homes.
The report said about 400,000 Iraqi children are suffering from "wasting" — a condition marked by chronic diarrhea and deficiencies in protein. "It's in the level of some African countries", Jon Pedersen, deputy managing director of the Oslo- based institute, told Associated Press.
Meanwhile, some Iraqis appear to be being deliberately denied medical assistance. Inter Press Service's Baghdad correspondent Dahr Jamail reported on November 30 that the Iraqi health ministry has instructed doctors not treat the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled Fallujah.
"The ministry of health instructed us not to provide aid for Fallujans", Baghdad doctor Aisha Mohammed told Jamail. "But then they have not done anything to help them during the siege, and very little at the refugee camps in Baghdad."
"During the Najaf fighting this summer things were not like this", said Dr Riad Hussein, a resident surgeon in Baghdad. "There were mobile operating theatres and plenty of help for them. But for Fallujah they have done next to nothing."
Dr Mohammed told Jamail that she and several doctors from her hospital had struggled to get supplies from the health ministry to refugees stranded in camps around Baghdad. "Only when we fought them did they allow us to have some supplies. What they eventually let us have after we demanded it, is still not nearly enough for all of the camps. We are in a crisis."
Jamail reported that ordinary Iraqis, rather than the IGI's health ministry or even non-governmental organisations, are providing most of the aid the refugees need.
"Even though we don't have enough of anything, most of what we have is coming from families, with not much from the ministry of health", Um Aziz, a mother of five from Fallujah, told Jamail as her children carried small plates of rice from a small mosque at the University of Baghdad, around which a refugee camp has been set up.
From Green Left Weekly, December 8, 2004.
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