Where Does Iraq Stand Among U.S. Wars?

But several other experts said that in size and political impact, the Iraq war now most resembles the U.S. anti-insurgency effort in the Philippines that lasted from 1899 to 1902, with a total of 7,192 dead and wounded U.S. troops.

"Conceptually, I would say that we are closer to the Philippine Insurrection than any of those prior conflicts," Hackemer said. "We are fighting an insurgency that has some measure -- difficult to determine -- of popular support as we attempt to install a government that fits our concept of 'representative' for the Iraqi people."

Indeed, the leading expert on the Philippines war said he finds the U.S. military experience there strikingly similar to the U.S. foray into Iraq.

"In both wars, there was a somewhat justified concern that the U.S. was invading a country that did not present a clear and present danger, and overthrowing an indigenous government," Linn said. "In both wars, the initial conventional operations were successful and the ensuing guerrilla campaign was far longer, more costly and more controversial. In both wars, the Army and political leadership failed to appreciate the diversity and intensity of popular resistance and dismissed it as followers of a tyrant, bandits and terrorists. In both wars, allegations of atrocities against civilians -- indiscriminate fire, torture and property destruction -- tarnished the Army's reputation and created widespread indigenous resentment."

In the Philippines, he said, that anger still persists, a century later.

Linn also offered one other similarity: In 1900, he said, the Republican candidate for president, William McKinley, was a war hero, while the Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan, "had used his political connections to get a commission in the National Guard and avoid combat."

But he also saw one major difference: He thinks the plodding, low-tech army of a century ago, with its roots in the Indian wars, was better at putting down an insurrection than is today's Army, "which has devoted itself to high-intensity machine warfare designed to rapidly knock out an opponent."

One thing that all three campaigns -- against the Native Americans, against the Filipino rebels and in Iraq -- have in common is that they were not, or are not being, waged against conventional militaries or states. That makes them fundamentally different from most other U.S. wars, said Dale C. Smith, chairman of the department of medical history at the Defense Department's own medical school, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

"Wars are acute events, like hemorrhages from cuts," Smith said. "The Philippines, the Indian campaigns of the late 19th century and Iraq are all 'chronic diseases' of the body politic." That is, he said, "like a gastric ulcer, they bleed us slowly and steadily, with occasional flare-ups of acute bleeding and pain. Over time, they can make us anemic and sap our strength, and most importantly, they cannot just be bandaged and gotten over -- they have to be managed with lifestyle changes and complex therapeutic regimens."