http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/24/iraq
US military passes 4,000 death toll in Iraq a.. Allegra Stratton and agencies b.. guardian.co.uk, c.. Monday March 24 2008 Close This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Monday March 24 2008. It was last updated at 10:53 on March 24 2008. The number of US troops killed in Iraq has reached 4,000 with the deaths of four soldiers in southern Baghdad. The four soldiers were on patrol when their vehicle was struck yesterday at around 10pm local time (7pm GMT) by a roadside bomb. "You regret every casualty, every loss," US vice president Dick Cheney told reporters during a visit to Jerusalem after the 4,000 death toll was passed. "It may have a psychological effect on the public, but it's a tragedy that we live in a kind of world where that happens." 901 American troops died in Iraq last year - the deadliest year for the US army in Iraq since 2004 when 850 were killed. Most of the fatalities in 2007 were incurred in the first part of the year as the US "surge", in which 30,000 additional US troops arrived in the country, got underway. In recent months the numbers of Iraqi and US deaths have declined. The US military dismisses such tolls as arbitrary markers. "No casualty is more or less significant than another; each soldier, marine, airman and sailor is equally precious and their loss equally tragic," US military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith told Reuters. Calculations by the Associated Press show that for every fatality in Iraq there had been 15 soldiers wounded. The news agency compared this with 2.6 wounded for every death in the Vietnam war, although the total 58,200 US troop deaths in that eleven year war is over ten times the current toll. The 4,000 figure includes eight civilians who worked for the Pentagon. In total, 61 Iraqis died yesterday in different violent incidents across the country. The deadliest attack of the day was in Mosul when a suicide driver slammed his vehicle through a security checkpoint in a hail of gunfire and detonated his explosives in front of an Iraqi headquarters building, killing 13 Iraqi soldiers and injuring 42 other people, police said. Mosul, Iraq's third largest city about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, has been described as the last major urban area where al-Qaida in Iraq maintains a significant presence. There was also a sustained attack on the green zone. Rockets and mortars slammed into the fortified area after sunrise and attacks continued throughout the day, according to Iraqi police and injuring at least five people according to a US embassy statement, without specifying nationalities. Iraqi police said 10 civilians were killed and more than 20 were injured in rocket or mortar blasts in scattered areas of eastern Baghdad - some of them probably due to misfired rounds. Also in the capital, seven people were killed and 14 wounded in a suicide car bombing Sunday in the Shia area of Shula, police reported. Gunmen opened fire on passengers waiting for buses in a predominantly Shia area in southeastern Baghdad, killing at least seven men and wounding 16 people, including women and children, according to police. No group claimed responsibility for the Green Zone attacks, but the weapons were fired from an enclave of Shiite extremists. The attacks followed a series of clashes last week between U.S. and Iraqi forces and factions of the Mahdi Army, the biggest Shia militia loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr led two uprisings against US-led coalition forces in 2004. Last August he declared a six-month cease-fire to purge the militia of criminal and dissident elements. US officials have cited the truce, which Sadr recently extended, among the reasons behind a 60% drop in violence since Bush ordered the 30,000 extra troops to Iraq early last year. But the cease-fire has come under severe strains in recent weeks. Sadr's followers have accused the Shiite-dominated government of exploiting the cease-fire to target the cleric's supporters in advance of provincial elections expected this fall. Sadr recently told his followers that although the truce remains in effect, they were free to defend themselves against attacks. Sadrists have demanded the release of supporters rounded up in recent weeks. US officials have insisted they are not going after Sadrists who respect the ceasefire but are targeting renegade elements, known as special groups, that the US believes have ties to Iran.
