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More U.S. Troops Dying in Anbar Province
The problems in Anbar prompted U.S. military officials last week to move more than 2,200 additional Marines to the western province in a short-term effort to shore up U.S. combat power there.
Such troop shifts have drawn criticism from Congress in the past. In August, as the Pentagon prepared for the Baghdad operation, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., likened the positioning of forces in Iraq to a game of "whack-a-mole," where generals try to curb violence in one area only to see it pop up somewhere else.
  The road from Baghdad to Ramadi as seen from the viewpoint U.S. Army Sgt. Walter Yenkosky, of Van Nuys, California, a passenger in one of six Humvees making the trip to Camp Fallujah, in Baghdad, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006. There was a fair amount of fear in the air as a six-Humvee convoy made the 65-kilometer (40 mile) journey from Baghdad to Camp Fallujah. Once considered among Iraq's most-dangerous locales, Fallujah is less violent since U.S. forces overran the city in November 2004. But it is located in Anbar, a largely Sunni Muslim province rife with insurgents. (AP Photo/Will Weissert) (Will Weissert - AP) PHOTOS |
Overall, the U.S. Army _ which has roughly 108,000 soldiers in Iraq _ has borne the brunt of the deaths throughout the war, including 163 of the 245 deaths the AP looked at during the three-month period. There were 68 Marines killed during that time, along with seven Navy members and six in the Air Force, and one was unknown.
The most prevalent cause of death has remained the same across the country. Roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices caused about 40 percent of the casualties, while another 13 percent were caused by small arms fire or snipers and 33 percent by unspecified combat incidents. Other causes of death included vehicle and helicopter crashes and non-combat incidents.
The high rate of Marine deaths is due in part to the fact that most are performing combat duties in the dangerous Anbar region. While the Army has a much larger presence in Iraq, some soldiers are serving in support roles or working in the headquarters units and are not doing combat duty.
Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, said this week that the decision to send more troops to Anbar is an effort to take advantage of "some of the momentum that is taking place. ... It is reinforcing success based on what we see the tribes doing."
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Associated Press researcher Monika Mathur contributed to this report.
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