U.S. Toll in Iraq Lowest in 8 Months

U.S. soldiers of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division break a chain to search a house during a patrol in the Amariyah neighborhood in west Baghdad, Iraq on Tuesday, July 31, 2007. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) (Petr David Josek - AP)

"We're chasing them to areas where they're not so well prepared and they don't have time to prepare, so chances are we will have fewer casualties," a senior U.S. military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the sensitive operations. "The tactical momentum has shifted to us."

The No. 2 commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, expressed cautious optimism last week about the decline in deaths.

He said casualties had increased as U.S. forces expanded operations into militant strongholds in the initial stages of the five-month-old security crackdown to clamp off violence in Baghdad. Now, he said, casualties were dropping as Americans gained control in those areas.

The U.S. military said Tuesday that the Marine had been killed the day before in fighting in the vast Anbar province west of Baghdad.

The attack raised to at least 73 the number of U.S. service members who have died in Iraq in July, the lowest number since November 2006, when at least 70 U.S. deaths were reported.

In all, at least 3,652 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an AP count. The figure includes seven military civilians.

Iraqi deaths rose, with at least 2,024 civilians, government officials and security forces killed in July, about 23 percent more than the 1,640 who died violently in June, according to AP figures compiled from police reports nationwide. That made July the second-deadliest month for Iraqis so far this year; at least 2,155 Iraqis were killed in May.

The figures are considered only a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported or uncounted.

At least 32 Iraqis were killed or found dead on Tuesday, including 25 bullet-riddled and tortured bodies in Baghdad and the southeastern city of Kut.

President Bush's choice to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday an increase of troops in Iraq is giving commanders the forces needed to improve security.

"Security is better, not great, but better," said Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, speaking before the Senate Armed Services committee at his nomination hearing. Bush chose Mullen to replace Marine Gen. Peter Pace.

However, Mullen acknowledged under questioning that "there does not appear to be much political progress" in Iraq.

"I believe security is critical to providing the government of Iraq the breathing space it needs to work toward political national reconciliation and economic growth, which are themselves critical to a stable Iraq," Mullen said. "Barring that, no amount of troops and no amount of time will make much of a difference."

In political developments, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, began a last-minute effort Tuesday to save the Shiite-dominated government from possible collapse, pressing key Sunni Arab politicians to set aside threats to quit the Cabinet and counseling the prime minister to "seriously consider" their demands.

Talabani also warned of "negative consequences" if the six Cabinet ministers from the Iraqi Accordance Front were to leave al-Maliki's 14-month-old government, as it has threatened to do on Wednesday. He did not elaborate, but the withdrawal of the Accordance Front's ministers could erase the government's "national unity" status and diminish its legitimacy.

The leader of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, also warned Tuesday of a "real civil war" if the central government does not implement a constitutional clause on the future of Kirkuk, the oil-rich city claimed by the Kurds.

Control over Kirkuk and the surrounding oil wealth is in dispute among the city's Kurdish, Arab and ethnic Turkish populations. Nationally, the dispute pits the Kurds, who want to annex it to their autonomous region in northern Iraq, against the country's Arab majority and its small minority of Turks, known locally as Turkomen.

___

AP News Research Center in New York contributed to this report.