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CNN Is Not Even Pretending to be Impartial Anymore.
U.S. Casualties in Iraq Top 200, Rising. By ROBERT BURNS
American troops in Iraq died in May at a rate of more than two per day, pushing the combined death count for April and May beyond 200, according to Pentagon figures. For the National Guard and Reserve, whose part-time soldiers make up at least one-third of the 135,000 American troops in Iraq, the trend in casualties during May was especially troubling. At least 22 citizen soldiers died, nearly one-third of all U.S. losses in May. As a percentage of the monthâs death toll, that is about double what it had been in most previous months of the war. It also shows that the Guard and Reserve are bearing an increasing combat load. Letâs contact Guinness! Itâs a record that just slightly more people have died in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars than died when the USS Indianapolis went down? May was deadlier than most previous months, but far less so than April, when the death toll was 136. That was by far the highest for any month since U.S. forces invaded in March 2003. The bloody fight for the city of Fallujah raged throughout April but has calmed down in the past few weeks. In total, the Iraq conflict has taken the lives of more than 800 American troops so far, and last week the Pentagon reported that the number wounded in action is approaching 4,700. The military says it continues to make progress in stabilizing Iraq, but the steadily rising death toll has become a political burden for a White House that also is focused on re-election. ... Among the 22 citizen soldiers killed in May was Staff Sgt. William D. Chaney, of the Illinois Army National Guard. At age 59, he was the oldest soldier to die in Iraq since the invasion began. Chaney, of Schaumburg, Ill., died May 18 at a U.S. military hospital in Germany of complications following surgery for a noncombat related condition that he developed while in Iraq. So now death from a "noncombat related condition" = "killed?" Also, "died at a U.S. military hospital in Germany" = "die[d] in Iraq?" Posted by: Tibor 2004-06-01 |
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