U.S. Deaths in Iraq Exceed 9-11 Count

U.S. soldiers from the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment look on during an anti-American demonstration in Baghdad, Monday, Dec. 25, 2006. Soldiers went house to house searching for weapons and bomb-making materials, touching off a protest that forced them to cut the mission short in some parts of the city. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) (Darko Vojinovic - AP)

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The U.S. military death toll in Iraq has reached 2,974, one more than the number of deaths in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, according to an Associated Press count on Tuesday.

The U.S. military announced the deaths of two soldiers in a bomb explosion southwest of Baghdad on Monday. The deaths raised the number of troops killed to 2,974 since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003.