US soldiers death toll 1,002

Published on Tuesday, September 7, 2004 by the Associated Press ​

U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq Campaign Pass 1,000 ​

by Hamza Hendawi ​

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. military deaths in the Iraq campaign passed 1,000 Tuesday, an Associated Press tally showed, as a spike in fighting with Sunni and Shiite insurgents killed seven Americans in the Baghdad area.

The count of 1,002 includes 999 U.S. troops and three civilians, two working for the U.S. Army and one for the Air Force. The tally was compiled by the AP based on Pentagon records and AP reporting from Iraq.

It includes deaths from hostile and non-hostile causes since President Bush launched the Iraq campaign in March 2003 to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The grim milestone was surpassed after a spike in fighting, which has killed 16 American service members in the past two days. Two soldiers died in clashes Tuesday with militiamen loyal to rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Five other Americans died Tuesday in separate attacks, mostly in the Baghdad area. Seven Marines were killed Monday in a suicide car bombing north of Fallujah. Two soldiers were killed in a mortar attack Sunday.

West of the capital, U.S. warplanes swooped low over Fallujah Tuesday in airstrikes after seven Marines and three Iraqi soldiers were killed the day before in a car-bombing near the Sunni insurgent-controlled city.

A group linked to Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - Tawhid and Jihad - posted a statement on a militant Web site claiming responsibility for the attack, describing it as "a martyr operation ... that targeted American soldiers and their mercenary apostate collaborators from the Iraqi army."

During a news conference at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld anticipated the tally would soon surpass 1,000 and sought to play down the milestone.

"When combined with U.S. losses in other theaters in the global war on terror, we have lost well more than a thousand already," he said.

Rumsfeld said the United States and its allies would not be swayed. Those who believe deaths would be a deterrent, he said, "underestimated our country, our coalition. They have failed to understand the character of our people. And they certainly misread our commander in chief."

Democrat presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry issued a statement saying the United States joined the friends and family of those who died in mourning their deaths.

"Today marks a tragic milestone in the war in Iraq. More than one thousand of Americas sons and daughters have made the ultimate sacrifice. Our nation honors their service and joins with their families and loved ones in mourning their loss," Kerry said.

"We must never forget the price they have paid. And we must meet our sacred obligation to all our troops to do all we can to make the right decisions in Iraq so that we can bring them home as soon as possible."

The Bush administration has long linked the Iraq conflict to the war on terrorism. The Sept. 11 Commission, however, concluded that Iraq and al-Qaida did not have a "collaborative relationship" before the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, and some have questioned to what extent foreign terror groups are involved in the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq.

Fighting between U.S. soldiers and al-Sadr's militiamen erupted Tuesday when U.S. officials said the cleric's gunmen fired on Americans carrying out patrols in the Sadr City district of Baghdad. Two Americans died in the fighting, U.S. officials said.

A senior Iraqi Health Ministry official, Saad al-Amili, scid 35 Iraqis were killed and 203 wounded in the Sadr City clashes. An al-Sadr spokesman, Sheik Raed al-Kadhimi, blamed "intrusive" American patrolling for provoking the fighting.

"Our fighters have no choice but to return fire and to face the U.S. forces and helicopters pounding our houses," al-Kadhimi said in a statement.

Late Tuesday, the militia announced a unilateral cease-fire but said it would fight back in self defense. It was unclear whether the statement had any meaning since vhe militia routinely defends its actions as legitimate self defense.

U.S. Army Capt. Brian O'Malley said he was unaware of the cease-fire offer but that the area was quiet in the early evening. "We only fire when we are fired at, but we will not stop our patrols or withdraw from our positions," he said.

At the Pentagon, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, blamed the spike in U.S. combat deaths on an insurgency that "is becoming more sophisticated in its efforts to destabilize the country."

"We are aggressively seeking and capturing those insurgents who are not willing to do so themselves, but are encouraging people to commit suicide attacks," Myers told reporters Tuesday. "Make no mistake, we will continue to pursue those who seek to disrupt progress in Iraq."

During the Sadr City fighting, U.S. warplanes flew over the sprawling neighborhood - home to some 2 million people. American tanks, their turrets spinning, deployed in key intersections. Cmbulances with sirens wailing rushed the wounded to hospitals as plumes of heavy, black smoke rose over the mainly Shiite neighborhood.

U.S. forces appeared to be carrying out most - if not all - of the fighting. No Iraqi security forces were seen during the clashes, though U.S. spokesmen talked of "multinational forces" involved in the operations, a term that sometimes includes Iraqi troops.

Small groups of al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army fighters pounded on the asphalt with hammers to plant mines and explosives in the streets. Fighters in their teens and early 20s trotted toward the clashes - rocket-propelled grenades in hand - as children scampered behind them.

Other militiamen, rifles in hand, gathered on street corners. Fighters using rocks and tires blocked roads leading to the area. By afternoon, most stores in the neighborhood were shuttered.

Elsewhere, a bomb exploded Tuesday near the convoy of the governor of the Baghdad region, killing two people. Gov. Ali al-Haidri esccped injury, Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdel Rahman said.

In another part of the capital, armed men in olive green uniforms stormed the office of an Italian aid group and seized two Italian women and two Iraqis. It was only the second known kidnapping of foreign women since a wave of hostage-takings began this year. A female Japanese aid worker was captured in Fallujah in April but was released a week later. Al-Sadr aides said Tuesday's fighting in Sadr City broke out after talks with interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's government stalled. Those talks followed a deal last month to end fighting between U.S. troops and al-Sadr's forces in the southern city of Najaf. The government had refused al-Sadr's demands to keep American troops out of the Baghdad Shiite neighborhood.

© 2004 Associated Press
​

 

Also, more than 7,000 wounded, paralyzed, maimed for life, comotose...


And almost 12,000 innocent Iraqis slaughtered, with thousands more wounded, paralyzed, maimed for life, comotose...

For NOTHING.

For LESS THAN NOTHING - for US oil executives' pocketbooks. Bush's entire regime should be tried for crimes against humanity - it is absolutely pathetic that the world has tolerated this.

 

... i think your wrong .

 

The Iraq War is for OIL. Osama bin Laden is nowhere near Iraq and Al Qaeda operates all over the world.

 

I don't think we need another debate about the reasons/lies/conspiracys blah blah blah blah.

What is the purpose of making a huge deal of the No. of people that have died...what are people trying to say ??

I feel sorry for the families...but who is doing the provocating...if the diffrent malitia/terrorists (call them what you like) ... put their guns down and talked no more people need die , i think a fairly a simple idea.
I have lost track of what they want and their motivations ?? ... i think they change depending on their mood at the time ...

 

I believe that their main motivation is that they want the nation responsible for the death of 16,000-20,000 Iraqis to leave. Now.

 

So you support their actions then..???

Even if those deaths you speak of ,were directly because Saddam did not do as was asked of him..

 

I can understand the reasons behind their actions. I dont condone suicide bombings and roadside explosives, but I wonder how I would react if a foriegn nation invaded and occupied my country (resulting in the deaths of friends and family).

Don't kid yourself. This was never about a threat to America. There have been and still are many ruthless dictators around the world. That fact is not ample reason for "regime change". I'm especially suspicious when it appears that the U.S. does so when it serves a purpose other than national security.

 

So its an eye for an eye..i would have thought they would be sick of all the death..and would want to find a peaceful way. I would agree with you...but when people have been kidnapped and beheaded or kidnapped and the reason for their kidnap change due to the demand being none of their business. Then i have to question the logic. I don't believe all what i see on TV ...but i have not heard anything that comes anywere close to being reasonable comeing out of their lips..I think we are muscling in on their territory. The balance of power is changing and they are not at the top. If you asked them why they are bombing us .... gauranteed they would say the same reasons that i see on these forums day after day.. How many lies do you think they tell ??It is all very convieniant for them to blame the americans (everybody else does).

I am sure thair are...None of this would be happening if only saddam had played ball..don'yt you think. If not why ??

 

Yeah I agree with you guys Iraqi's lives arn't worth as much as Americans, we should have left Sadam in.

 

Old chessnuts are what this board is all about .

 

If you guys can't explain how this war is for oil, then don't say it is. I would like to know where all this oil is and what the deal is with it. Until then, I will bring up as many chestnuts as I want.

 

Doon, I'll be happy to explain.


What you have to understand is that this isn't just about getting the oil, but controlling the oil. Mother Jones magazine, prior to the invasion of Iraq, had published an article with multiple government quotes from the 1970's which said things like "The US should make control of the oil resources in the middle east a priority in the coming years" and the like. As nations like China and India increase consumption, they, like the US, are increasing oil consumption. If the US controls access to middle eastern oil, not only is it possible for the US to acquire that oil at a lower price, it is possible to cut off oil to other nations if it becomes "necessary."

Further, oil resources are running out. Some wells have gone completely dry already. The US has determined that it will control access to the major remaining stores of oil, so that there is absolutely no chance whatsoever that middle eastern nations can use US oil dependence in the future as a "bargaining chip" or so that the US economy would suffer due to increasing prices or lessening supplies of oil. In other words, if anyone is going to be cut off from oil supplies, we sure as hell ain't going first.

Beyond simply controlling oil in order to keep our own supply, it is also imperative to the US ruling elite that China's development into a "superpower" be controlled. The Bush "manifesto" of development (shit - what was that thing called? Anyone - it's completely slipping my mind here - anyway, the point is that this is an actual document which can be read online) states that NO OTHER NATION should be permitted to become a world power to rival the US anytime in the forseeable future. None. So there is great resistance to the EU becoming an actual military power or acquiring weapons to rival the US. And China is probably the largest growing threat to the US vision of complete world domination for the next 500 years, because it is becoming more and more powerful economically (largely due to US dependence on its production of goods), it is becoming more and more of a consumer nation, and it has the numbers to fight the US and weapons to make it especially nasty. The US, then, MUST control the flow of oil to China, and it MUST be in a position to limit or cut off that oil in the future.

More than anything, you need to understand - this isn't just about Iraq. This is about completely controlling the flow and access to major oil resources on this planet. This is colonial resource control - nothing more. This is why it was so important for them to get into Iraq. We all KNOW there was no threat from that country - everyone really KNOWS that, don't we? And we surely aren't foolish enough to believe this is about "human rights," since we count nations like China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc. as "allies" - some of the biggest human rights violators in existence? So think. What was it about? Why was it SO NECESSARY to invade Iraq? There is really only one answer left.

And to the moron who keeps acting as if the people in Iraq are "terrorists" - I'll remind you that it was the Iraqi people who were attacked, not vice versa. The Iraqis have no obligation to be invaded, oppressed, and ruled over by a foreign army and to simply sit down and TAKE IT. They have a right to fight their invader. It's THEIR COUNTRY. They are defending themselves. They've lost about 12,000 innocent people to a country that wants to dominate THEIR NATURAL RESOURCES. More power to the Iraqi resistance!

 

1,002 sitting ducks

and it soon enough a sister report will moan about 2004 sitting ducks as more and more hunters are getting hungry and bored

it takes the pressure of your homeland security abit. nice people

 

Willow, as mentioned by myself and others numerous times, the agenda you refer to is the PNAC agenda and the document upon which that agenda is based and from whence you drew that quote is named "Rebuilding America's Defences", the brainchild of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz and Feith (and sever other key PNAC heads who happen to hold posititons in the coup that has rigged its way to power and intends to maintain it either directly or by proxy (whilst the public contents itself with the facade of democratic change).

However, the reality is that behind the PNAC the ultimate arbiters of power are not truly the "United States" (as a nation state) but the select supranational corporations whose aim has long been total private ownership of every last aspect and element of the biosphere (water, land, clean air (or what inevitably will remain of it in several generations' time), even the human genome)). Once governments have duly deregulated every last control rightly meant to subordinate the amoral practices and sheer greed of the MNCs, they too will be discarded as the mere utilitarian puppets they were bought and manipulated into being.

To the MNC there is no such sentiment as patriotism or humanocentrism. Only private ownership, hegemony and profit.

It is the likes of Haliburton, Bechtel, the ultimately prevailing energy concerns (once buyouts and mergers culminate in the singular or few remaining entities) and, likewise, the prevailing financial institutions which leverage the hegemony. It will be these entities, which will hold hostage whatever nations' populaces dare to rise up and stop them with the ultimate means of blackmail and control.

Label me and those who see this cabal for the harbingers of an age of total corporate dominance that they are as mere conspiracy theorists, but do so in denial of countless examples of the extent to which corporations will go to subjugate the common man in the pursuit of profit. These examples can be easily researched and verified if one dares to want to know the truth.

I suggest again that sceptics give objective audience to the three part documentary (3 hours in length) "The Corporation" as a starting point. If you have any conscience and concern for the world we are to leave to our children and our grandchildren, this video may just make you sick enough to realise what we need to fight goes beyond petty political labels of left and right.

Soon enough even the comfy smug insulated world the majority of we Americans have for generations taken for granted at home will come crashing down. Either arm yourself with the knowledge of what the real game is now or continue to make excuses in defence of those who couldn't care less about you or your future save for your value to them as a "production unit" and stand scratching your head at the extent of the betrayal when they determine a more cost effective means of replacing you.

Those who download films using DirectConnect or DC++ should be able to find the video file, as I did, in the P2P arena. Otherwise here is a link for more information...

http://www.thecorporation.tv/

 

Some of these names sound familiar...I think they may have some power these days.

A vote for Bush moves us closer to this, a vote for Kerry, further away. Like any of you actually care about the environment, I'd love to see how you all live. Hypocrites. Cutelilgratefuldeadlover or whatever her name is works for a corporation, you all probably drive everywhere, eat meat. Just shut up. Seriously, if you don't live in a manner that agrees with your sentiments, just be quiet because you sicken me.

Again, connected to the BUSH administration. You think Kerry will start wars for these slimeballs?

OK I looked at the trailors and one of them really struck me...Moore's discussion of cars. I don't have one and frankly I don't think I'll ever need one. I live by my principles. Now it's your turn. How many of you shop at Walmart, eat fastfood, drink Starbucks, etc.... I'm really sick of so many people here talking down to everyone else. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it over and over.......practice what you preach!! It's not enough to vote for Nader (he's no less corrupt than Kerry) or to mouth off on a discussion forum, you have to live it.
I will vote Democrat this yr. because that will keep us out of wars, far more urgent than anything else I can think of.

 

I dont own a car greeny, I use public transport or walk.

 

You are so right, but you should of mentioned how the Democratic party supports the murder of 40 million american children by abortion. And it doesent even involve oil. So they cut their little arms and legs off and flush them down the toilets, and toss them into dumpsters. Don't worry, God is going to make sure America gets what it deserves. And everyone who is involved in this murder industry, will get their reward in the end.