[Marxism] U.S. casualties in Iraq approach 10,000 mark...

["David Quarter" <davidquarter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Posted on Fri, Nov. 28, 2003
Toll on U.S. troops in Iraq grows as wounded rolls approach 10,000
BY ROGER ROY
The Orlando Sentinel

ORLANDO, Fla. - (KRT) - Nearly 10,000 U.S. troops have been
killed, wounded, injured or become ill enough to require evacuation
from Iraq since the war began, the equivalent of almost one Army
division, according to the Pentagon.
Unlike the more than 2,800 American fighting men and women
logged by the Defense Department as killed and wounded by
weapons in Iraq, the numbers of injured and sick have been more
difficult to track, leading critics to accuse the military of under-
reporting casualty numbers.
Military officials deny they are fudging the numbers. But the latest
figures show that 9,675 U.S. troops have been killed, wounded,
injured such as in accidents, or become sick enough to require
airlifting out of Iraq.
"I don't think even that is the whole story," said Nancy Lessin of
Boston, the mother of an Iraq war veteran and co-founder of Military
Families Speak Out, a group opposed to the war in Iraq.
"We really think there's an effort to hide the true cost in life, limb
and the mental health of our soldiers," Lessin said. "There's a
larger picture here of really trying to hide and obfuscate what's
going on, and the wounded and injured are part of it."
The number of sick and injured is almost certainly substantially
higher, because the figures provided by the military last week
include totals only through Oct. 30.
Virginia Stephanakis, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army surgeon
general, said there has been no effort to manipulate the casualty
statistics.
"I can reassure you that these are the best figures we have,"
Stephanakis said. "We're certainly not playing with the numbers or
trying to downplay them."
As of Friday, 2,401 U.S. troops were listed as wounded in Iraq
since the war began in March. At least 424 have died in combat or
in accidents.
Another 2,464 suffered nonbattle injuries, which would include
everything from accidental gunshots to broken bones and vehicle
accidents, Stephanakis said.
And another 4,397 troops have been evacuated from Iraq to U.S.
military hospitals - usually in Germany - for treatment of medical
problems not related to wounds or injuries.
They include 290 treated for urological problems such as kidney
stones - thought by many soldiers to be caused by drinking large
quantities of high-mineral bottled water during the blistering
summer in Iraq. Another 299 were treated for heart problems and
249 for gastrointestinal illnesses.
Another 504 troops were evacuated for treatment of psychiatric
problems.
Stephanakis could not say how many of the psychiatric cases
have been diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder, a
debilitating mental condition that can strike troops who have been
in combat or a war zone.
"I have no breakdown," she said. "Most are related to what people
call combat stress, depression, anxiety."
The Pentagon is not expected to release any updated figures on
noncombat wounded, sick and injured until early next month.
Some critics accuse the military of low-balling its figures to curb
criticism of the war.
"I think it's a general reluctance to be forthcoming," said Wilson
"Woody" Powell, a Korean War veteran and executive director of
Veterans for Peace, a St. Louis antiwar organization.
"There are ways of shaping numbers," Powell said. "You can do a
lot just by omitting a few things now and then."
For example, critics said, the figures released by the Army do not
include men and women whose injuries or illnesses were treated in
Iraq, but only those who required transfer to medical facilities
outside Iraq.
Some troops who have been wounded in bomb or mortar attacks
have been awarded the Purple Heart, but their wounds were not
serious enough to require them to be evacuated.
And Lessin said the reported number of troops treated for
psychiatric problems does not include those who didn't seek
treatment until they returned home.
Since April, the military says, at least 17 U.S. troops have
committed suicide in Iraq, and the cause of at least two dozen
other noncombat deaths had not been determined.
Stephanakis acknowledged the figures don't include every troop
injury and illness from the war in Iraq. But because the military
medical system was designed to give only enough treatment in Iraq
to stabilize patients, then transfer them to facilities in Europe or the
United States, virtually every serious injury or illness is included in
the numbers, she said.
And some troops were taken to medical facilities in Europe for
minor procedures not available in Iraq, Stephanakis said.
For example, 319 troops were evacuated for gynecological
treatments, some of which may have been minor procedures, she
said.
"It's easier for us to evacuate them to Germany than to keep a
gynecologist in Baghdad," Stephanakis said.
And although accidents have killed and seriously injured hundreds
of troops in war-time Iraq, even in peace time, military accidents
claim many lives.
In 1999, the latest year for which statistics were available, 761 U.S.
troops died around the world out of a military population of about
1.4 million, according to the Defense Department. Most of those
deaths - 411 - were caused by accidents, with illness claiming
another 126 lives and self-inflicted wounds, 110.
Even so, according to the Defense Department statistics, the death
rate among troops that year was less than half the death rate in
1980.
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© 2003, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).