Bad bombings but less troops dead in Iraq

[sabra]

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/printer_1048660.php

Bad bombings but less troops dead in Iraq


WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- For the first time since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Iraq made it back on the news shows this week, and the images were all bad: Wednesday`s bloodbath of bombings in Baghdad that killed 140 people were followed Thursday by other attacks that killed nearly 40 more. Yet there were some positive trends this week in Iraq too.

It must be admitted that the lull of the previous week from this perspective now looks just like a breathing space between horrors, as the week before that had seen the hideous spectacle of nearly a thousand Shiite Muslim pilgrims crushed to death or drowned in the stampede on the Aimma Bridge across the Tigris River in Baghdad, set off by insurgent mortar fire.

However, formidable though it is, the insurgents` strength is not limitless. According to official Department of Defense figures cited by the Iraq Index Project of the Brookings Institution The number of U.S. troops they succeeded in killing over the past week was very low, suggesting that they my have been focusing their resources from around the country for Wednesday`s killing spree in Baghdad,

In the six days from Sept. 8 through Sept. 13, only six U.S. soldiers died in Iraq, and only three of them from hostile action. Thus maintained the welcome low death rate of the previous week from Sept. 1 through Sept. 7 when, only eight U.S. soldiers died in Iraq, and only three of those were killed in action. If this low rate of attrition could be maintained for the rest of the month, September`s fatal casualties could be as low as 30, only one-third the number who died in August.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. YAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

:eyes:

[flowomo]

2. geez, that's a pretty illiterate headline....

it's "fewer troops" not less. And I used to work for UPI

[Bob3]

3. I suspect that the troops are being kept close to their bases

rather than risk more bad news - that the insurgents are running wild in Baghdad and elsewhere leads me to think that there aren't a lot of American Boots on the ground in Harms way.

[Barrett808]

6. Yes. They've also been withdrawing from some cities...

...handing them over to Islamist militias and former Saddamites.

Some victory.

[acmavm]

4. If we'e lucky the September casualty rate could be as low as 30?

They shouldn't be dying there at all.

[Gloria]

5. MEMO TO UPI---that's "FEWER" troops...shit

eom

[maxsolomon]

7. whoop de freakin doo

wow, they don't have limitless strength? shocking.