A Rising Toll, and Prospects for Even Worse
America's 43rd month in Iraq is turning out to be one of the deadlier ones yet for its men and women in uniform. Flag-draped coffins are quietly being sent home almost every day. October has been particularly brutal, with U.S. forces squeezed between a stubborn Sunni insurgency, volatile Shiite militias, and surging sectarian strife.
The numbers have been piling up-fast. More than 2,780 Americans have been killed in Iraq-and over 9,500 have been seriously injured. The small town of Salem, N.H., is among those mourning one of the 73 soldiers killed so far this month-Army Cpl. Nicholas Arvanitis. The 22-year-old paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division was fatally shot while on patrol in a city north of Baghdad.
The Ramadan resurgence-Iraqis have been observing the Islamic holy month-has added to a broader feeling that Iraq might simply be spinning out of control. Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, looks increasingly ineffectual. Last week, Maliki forced the U.S. military to release one of radical cleric Moqtadr al-Sadr's key aides, who was suspected of links to death squads. The next day, Maliki could only watch as Sadr's goons overran the southern city of Amarah, taking over several police stations.
All the violence has brought Iraq to the forefront of the coming election. President Bush, in a defensive tactic, has moved away from his "stay the course" refrain toward an apparent new willingness to shift tactics. But with even his former deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, conceding, "We can't win this militarily," everyone, it seems, is increasingly just looking for a reasonable way out.
This story appears in the October 30, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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