US General: Iraqi guerillas deadlier

To all the chickenhawks and their apologists who think things in Iraq are getting better, the top US general in that country begs to differ.

The top American general in Iraq said Thursday guerrillas fighting his troops were becoming deadlier, after the killing of three more soldiers added urgency to U.S. efforts to garner help stabilizing the country [...]

"The enemy has evolved. It is a little bit more lethal, little bit more complex, little bit more sophisticated and in some cases a little bit more tenacious," said Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of ground forces in Iraq.

"As long as we are here the coalition need to be prepared to take casualties," he told a news conference. "We should not be surprised if one of these days we wake up to find there's been a major firefight or a major terrorist attack."

In Vietnam, we suffered 1,864 killed between 1961 and 1965, an average of 373 per year (someone I'm sure can find more precise numbers).

In the eight months since Bush launched his war, we have suffered 316 dead, plus an additional 54 allied deaths.

And that paints just part of the picture. In the first five years of the Vietnam War, we suffered 7,337 wounded in action, or an average of 1,467 per year. In Iraq, we have suffered at least 1,695 wounded -- meaning we are running higher than casualty rates of those early years of the Vietnam War.

Bush has gotten us into a mess he can't fix, and real people are suffering the consequences. And no matter how rosy a picture they may try to paint, fact is, we've got a clusterfuck on our hands.

Posted October 02, 2003 08:29 AM | Comments (90)