Black August

The rightwing blogsphere complain repeatedly about the news coverage of Iraq. They claim they bury positive stories. The truth is the only thing being buried are more young Americans fighting an illegal, poorly planned and unnecessary war.

WASHINGTON -- It is "Black August" for American soldiers in Iraq. Devastating improvements in shaped charges and multiple-piled mines used by Sunni Muslim insurgents there have enabled them to inflict massive casualties on U.S. forces.

According to the Iraq Index Project of the Brookings Institution, from Aug. 3 through Aug. 10, 44 U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq in the first 10 days of August alone, compared with 28 killed the week of July 28 through Aug. 3.
As the Washington Post noted Sunday, that made the week of Aug. 3-Aug. 10 "the fourth worst week of the whole war for U.S. military deaths in combat and for August already ... The worst month for deaths of the National Guard and Reserve.

This current week, the figures will also be bad. On Sunday alone, the Department of Defense announced the deaths in combat of another five U.S. soldiers on Saturday and Sunday,

If the Iraqi insurgents succeed in maintaining their kill rate of U.S. troops for the rest of this month, August could see more than 130 U.S. troops killed, the worst death toll per month there since last November. In July, which seemed to be a bad enough month at the time, 54 U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq, according to Department of Defense figures.

The number of U.S. troops wounded in action from the beginning of hostilities on March 19, 2003, through Wednesday, Aug.10 was 13,877, an increase of 108 on the previous week, the IIP said. This figure was remarkably close to the figure of 112 for the previous week of July 28 to Aug. 3, and this in turn suggested that despite the dramatically increased death toll of U.S. troops, the insurgency was reporting in its attacks against U.S. forces across Iraq at about the same level.

But this remained cold comfort as the increased lethality of attacks through the first third of August strongly indicated that the insurgents are now capable of producing much more complex and lethal improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, capable of inflicting far more fatalities on U.S. forces.

The main cause for this rise in lethal expertise, U.S. military analysts believe, is training given to the Sunni Muslim insurgents by veteran bomb-makers from the Shiite Hezbollah, or Party of God, in Southern Lebanon that has been strongly supported over the past quarter century by Syria and most of all by Iran.

The number of U.S. troops wounded over the week of Aug. 3 - Aug. 10 was 108, the IIP said. This remained far below the figure of 293 U.S. soldiers wounded from July 6 to July 13, but still above the grim average of over 100 U.S. soldiers injured per week, many of them losing limbs or suffering other permanent disabilities. It clearly indicated that the insurgency was continuing to run at the same serious levels as it has in recent weeks with no reduction in sight.

There was a little evidence to suggest that the insurgents diverting some of their resources and expertise from their devastating ongoing assaults on the new Iraqi security forces to target U.S. troops instead so far this month.