US War Dead in Iraq Exceeds Early Vietnam Years

The U.S. death toll in Iraq has surpassed the number of American soldiers killed during the first three years of the Vietnam War, the brutal Cold War conflict that cast a shadow over U.S. affairs for more than a generation. A Reuters analysis of Defense Department statistics showed on Thursday that the Vietnam War, which the Army says officially began on Dec. 11, 1961, produced a combined 392 fatal casualties from 1962 through 1964, when American troop levels in Indochina stood at just over 17,000. By comparison, a roadside bomb attack that killed a soldier in Baghdad on Wednesday brought to 397 the tally of American dead in Iraq, where U.S. forces number about 130,000 troops -- the same number reached in Vietnam by October 1965. Larger still is the number of American casualties from the broader U.S. war on terrorism, which has produced 488 military deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Southwest Asia and other locations.

Update:
I wasn't going to say anything, but enough people pointed it out to warrant a mention: The above photo depicts Italian caskets. There are no photos of American fatalities because the Bush Administration has put a gag order on the media from showing them.

[T]he White House and the Pentagon are showing increased
sensitivity to the portrayal of U.S. casualties from the war in Iraq.
Officials have barred media coverage of the bodies of troops arriving
at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, in that case also insisting that a
long-ignored rule be enforced. "It concerns me, because you can't
understand the true cost of war if you can't see the amputees and the
people who have been killed," said Steve Robinson, executive director
of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veterans group. "The
results of war have to be witnessed at graveside, whether you like it
or not."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 14, 2003 at 09:50 AM | Permalink