Hiding the bodies

U.S. casualties have spiked in Iraq over the last three months, but security expert John Pike says the Bush administration -- with the help of the media -- is succeeding in keeping the carnage out of view.

By Jeff Horwitz

Sep 8, 2004 | During August, Iraqi insurgents proved themselves more capable of inflicting casualties on American troops than ever before. Sixty-six American soldiers were killed and more than 1,100 were wounded, according to information released by the Department of Defense. But even with extensive coverage of the intense conflict in Najaf last month, the U.S. media was relatively quiet about the cost of battle to U.S. soldiers.

That cost has been steadily rising for months, says John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a think tank in Washington specializing in military and international security issues. "The amount of combat that U.S. soldiers are seeing is going up, but the amount of combat the American public is seeing is going down," he says. "Iraq has almost turned into the forgotten war -- it's just faded into the background."

The news on Tuesday of crossing the 1,000 marker for U.S. fatalities in Iraq has brought the conflict back into the headlines, at least temporarily. But since the transfer of power to Ayad Allawi's interim Iraqi government in June, deaths and casualties have risen every month: August was the bloodiest month in the conflict so far. A week into September, the situation looks no calmer; at least 14 soldiers have died in the last three days.

The steady rise in U.S. casualties can't be helpful to Bush's reelection campaign -- which continues to stick to its message that the overall situation in Iraq is improving -- and could have an impact on the homestretch of the election. To that end, Pike believes that Donald Rumsfeld's Department of Defense is being "economical with the truth" in order to downplay the increasing casualties. "The numbers they release are the smallest possible numbers that cover the most restricted possible definition," he says. "And they are being released as late as possible."

Salon reached Pike by phone on Tuesday at his office in Washington.

What is Global Security's assessment of the rate of U.S. casualties in Iraq during August?

By our calculation, it was the bloodiest month of the war. And as for why, well, the short answer is that we just don't know. CENTCOM presumably has a much better idea, but Secretary Rumsfeld only addressed it in very general terms on Tuesday. It appears that a significant chunk of the casualties were from the siege in Najaf, where the enemy were firing mortar rounds at our troops, who were out in the open. The theory is that the shrapnel from those mortar rounds would produce a lot of wounds, but relatively fewer fatalities.

I think that this substantial increase in the number of battle injuries is really indicative of how intense the siege of Najaf was.

The media was largely focused on Najaf, but wasn't the fighting more widespread?

Well, things have since cooled down in Najaf, but yes, they've been heating up pretty good in other locations. Now Sadr City is looking bad. And the Marines in Fallujah are really hurting again. They had a bad day [Tuesday] in Fallujah with another suicide car bomb.

What do you think the impact will be of the news that more than 1,000 American soldiers have now died in Iraq?

I think it will refocus public attention on the costs of the war, and I hope it will refocus public attention on what can be done over the longer run to reduce this cost to Americans. Because the war has really receded in the mass media. The amount of coverage of the war has gone way down in the last several months.

The amount of combat that the soldiers are seeing is going up, but the amount of combat the American public is seeing is going down. Iraq has almost turned into the forgotten war -- it's just faded into the background.

Your new report predicts an even worse month for casualties in September.

Yes, there's been an upward trend in American deaths in Iraq for each of the last three months; each one's been worse that the previous one. And it looks like September's going to be worse that August. The battle injuries were really bad last month, and it may get worse before it gets better.

We're projecting what the number of fatalities for the month of September will be based on what we've seen to date. And as of today, the 7th, we've already had 23 deaths this month. If the rest of the month looks like the first week, then it looks like we'll have as many as 100 dead this month, making it the second worst month of the war.

What's your view of how the Bush administration is currently handling the situation in Iraq?

Well, of course the administration is going to try to highlight the good news that is coming out of Iraq. The good news is that they are starting to spend reconstruction money, that they are equipping Iraqi forces, and that those Iraqi forces are standing up. More and more Iraqi troops are fighting for their own country so that we don't have to do it for them.

But are they being forthright about the rate of U.S. casualties?

I think if you look at the information being released, you can see all types of information not being covered. The Army gives out casualty evacuation numbers; the Marine Corps does not. And there's very little information being given out on combat stress casualties. The Army gives out information on how many psychiatric evaluations they've had from the war theater, but some significant multiple of that number must be in the combat stress care system in the theater. But they'd only evacuate somebody due to combat stress if all else failed. So we're getting an extremely incomplete portrait of what the human cost to American soldiers has been.

Next Page: How many wounded U.S. soldiers have died after evacuation from Iraq?

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