78 U.S. Troops Killed In October In Iraq

(CBS/AP)  As President Bush reviewed Iraq strategy on Saturday with top generals and administration officials, the U.S. military announced that three more Marines were killed in combat in Anbar province, bringing October's death toll for American forces to 78.

That makes October the deadliest month for the American military in Iraq this year, surpassing the previous high figure of 76 in April. The skyrocketing death figure meant October, with more than a week left, was on course to be the deadliest month for American service members in two years.

Mr. Bush's second day in a row of meetings on the war in Iraq comes amid increasing election-season pressure to make dramatic changes to address deteriorating conditions.

With an increasing number of Republicans – including candidates in the November 7 elections – publicly conceding that the Iraq is not going well, Mr. Bush has suggested that he is open to changes in war tactics, reports CBS News correspondent Dan Raviv.

"I think the pressure for the president to re-examine what we're doing is going to be overwhelming," said Harlan Ullman, a defense-analyst and part-time consultant to the military.

But the overall strategy will remain the same, he says: defeating terrorists and helping Iraqis create their own stable government.

CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports that some troops are frustrated by the constraints they're facing while trying to stop the violence.

"The military aren't able to operate freely at all. They are completely restricted and limited by the politics. For example they can't act against certain militias or certain high-value targets because of their connections inside the government and unless the Iraqi government gives them permission."

Logan adds, "So that's very frustrating for the military. They're tied to the political system, and so far the political system is failing. So unless something changes dramatically, it doesn't look like this is a war that can be won."

Before a midmorning bike ride, the president consulted for 90 minutes at the White House with his national security team, spokeswoman Nicole Guillemard said.

Gathered around a Roosevelt Room conference table with Mr. Bush were Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East; Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley; and other officials. Vice President Dick Cheney and Gen. George Casey, who leads the U.S.-led Multinational Forces in Iraq, joined in by videoconference.

"The participants focused on the nature of the enemy, the challenges in Iraq, how to better pursue our strategy, and the stakes of succeeding for the region and the security of the American people," Guillemard said.

Mr. Bush also met with Abizaid for a half-hour on Friday.

Even as it appeared to set the stage for a possible announcement, the White House insisted the meeting was routine and that all that is in question is a change in tactics in the war, not an overhaul of broader strategy or goals. Guillemard said the session was the third in a series of consultations with commanders that would continue in the same forum in the coming weeks.

The discussions Friday and Saturday came at the end of a week in which the U.S. military spokesman in Iraq said a stepped-up operation to secure Baghdad was failing and needed to be refocused; Republicans worried about losing ground in midterm elections expressed fresh doubts about the war; and frustration grew with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's lack of progress in reining in militias.

Some new ideas will be published by an advisory panel created by Congress, the Iraq Study Group, headed by former Secretary of State James Baker, reports Raviv. That group has both Republicans and Democrats and is expected to be critical of how the war has been conducted, while suggesting possible changes. Baker decided, however, not to reveal any of his group's findings until after the congressional elections – so that neither political party would spin the report for electoral advantage.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters traveling with her from Asia to Moscow that Mr. Bush meets often with generals overseeing the war effort, including a similar session she attended recently at Camp David.

"I wouldn't read into this somehow that there is a full-scale push for a major re-evaluation," Rice said.

"They are always looking at what course we're on, whether or not it's working, what's working and what isn't working," Rice said. "I'm quite certain that given the problems of violence in Iraq and the fact that the violence is not coming down to the degree that people would have hoped, that there is going to be a lot of discussion about how we address that."

But a senior State Department official gave a more pessimistic assessment of U.S. policy so far in Iraq. Speaking on Al-Jazeera, Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said the United States had shown "arrogance" and "stupidity" in Iraq. He said the U.S. was now ready to talk with any group - except al Qaeda in Iraq - to facilitate national reconciliation.

On Friday, gunmen loyal to an anti-American Shiite cleric briefly seized a major southern city, an embarrassment for the local Iraqi security forces. For October so far, the U.S. death toll was at least 75 — and likely to be the highest for any month in nearly two years.

"The last few weeks have been rough for our troops in Iraq, and for the Iraqi people," Mr. Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address. "The fighting is difficult, but our nation has seen difficult fights before. In World War II and the Cold War, earlier generations of Americans sacrificed so that we can live in freedom. This generation will do its duty as well."

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Listen: President Bush's Radio Address

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Listen: Diane Farrell's Democratic Radio Address

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Mr. Bush said the violence has increased because the Baghdad campaign has put a greater number of American forces in the most violent areas and because terrorists are grasping for propaganda tools. He insisted his goal of victory in Iraq would not change. He also praised Iraq's leaders for "beginning to take the difficult steps necessary to defeat the terrorists and unite their country."

"The terrorists are trying to divide America and break our will, and we must not allow them to succeed," he said. "We will help Iraq become a strong democracy that is a strong ally in the war on terror."

But Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, who holds a seat deemed safe for the GOP, said in a campaign debate Thursday she would have voted against the war had she known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction, and said earlier in the week that partitioning Iraq into semiautonomous Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions should be considered.

Democrats also kept up the pressure. In a letter to the president, a dozen House and Senate Democratic leaders urged him to bring home some U.S. troops and force the Iraqis to take more responsibility for their security. The Democrats said Mr. Bush should do more to pressure Iraqi leaders to disarm militias and find a political solution that would curb violence.

Delivering the Democratic radio response, Diane Farrell, who is trying to unseat GOP Rep. Chris Shays in Connecticut, said Mr. Bush should fire Rumsfeld and Congress should establish benchmarks for Iraqis that would allow U.S. troops to leave.

"We need a new direction in Iraq. To be blunt, the president and the Republican Congress have been wrong on Iraq and wrong to keep their failed strategy," Farrell said. "An arbitrary departure date could be dangerous, but real goals for the new Iraqi government and its army are necessary."

Mr. Bush called withdrawal a retreat that "would allow the terrorists to gain a new safe haven from which to launch new attacks on America."

"We will not pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete," he said.

An independent commission led by former secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana is exploring options for a new strategy. Though Mr. Bush is not expected to hear their recommendations for change until December or January, the White House has rejected possible ideas such as partitioning Iraq or a phased withdrawal of troops.

[emhawks]

For those who are interested, there is alot of information available on the Internet about:
Halliburton
Saudi Binladen Group(SBG)
Brown & Root
Bechtel
Project for the New American Century(PNAC)
The Carlyle Group
The history of the Bush family's involvement with the bin Laden family.
Read the book "Crossing the Rubicon" by Michael C. Ruppert.
Remember, knowlege is power!

[tibu987]

Bush and cronies:
"MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"
Yeah sure, tell that to the families that have lost loved ones, American and Iraqi.
Vote out the imcumbents, Dems or Repubs.
Vote for term limits.

[missingamerica]

Do you begin to understand why America's businesses are unable to compete globally?

Most of the Administration is drawn from the ranks of business; they "set a course", that course fails, and they immediately try to find anything other than their leadership, imagination, and planning skills to blame.

Here, its "labor that won't cooperate with managment in cutting costs"; in Iraq, its "terrorists that won't cooperate with the peace process".

I often wonder if the two terms (labor and terrorists) aren't interchangeble in their minds, because their reaction to resistance from either is ideologically if not physically identical - close the factory and ignore the human impact, or blow up the factory and ignore the human impact.

They are like children with a balky toy - if it initially refuses to cooperate fully, they stamp it into dust instead of learning what makes it tick and teaching themselves the flexibility required to use it correctly.

[heetseeker]

This is an interesting point... for an administration that was slow to acknowledge that things were not going well in Iraq & has failed to hold any of its architects accountable ... how might it eventually account for the collpase of its policy in Iraq?

Well accountability has never been a strength of this Government and |I suspect they are preparing their excuses as we post... expect blame to be laid at the door of: the public for lacking will for the fight, the press for "negative" reporting and "old Europe" for not sending their own young to be slaughtered in the Sunni triangle....

Indeed anyone else but themselves...

Comforted that they will be immune from prosection...their memoirs will be a rewrite history & deniability will be their defence....

[j-whitman]

How do republicans spell "Cut & Run",,,, Will Bush be the new surrender monkey?

[j-whitman]

Ask Bush tomorrow how he spells FAILURE. Tomorrow won't be a good day for our White House. Watch the news.

[heetseeker]

There is nothing redeeming about showing young soldiers being killed.... it is an obscenity...

However keep in mind that war is not redeeming... on the contrary it is an obscene & bloody hell... even those wars which we have had to fight for our very survival....

The American public should see war in all its obscenity... our soldiers in Iraq are not playing nintendo... they are fighting & dying bravely... we should NEVER sanitise war... for the day we do we become careless in our support for it...

This administration does not want footage of shot soldiers or coffins to be broadcast because it provides evidence of their culpability and failings in Iraq, and is in direct conflict with the endless "happy talk" of progress

When we see our soldiers dying in Iraq we ask: why, three years after the war began, are we entrapped in this swamp.... oh yes it is because of the concocted, exaggerated threat created by an administration that cares more for its neo conservative world view than the integrity of its leadership...

Yes we should show the pictures & worse than that if possible... let us see the consequences of deception and deceitfulness in all their obscene glory... lets us not cover our eyes or be indignant at the sight of our young people being slaughtered, committing suicide & driven mad in Iraq... rather let us ask ourselves how did we get here, who sent them and why...

[agnim]

Janem

"All of the posts in response to my post fail to tell me how showing our soldiers being killed serves a purpose."

One purpose is for you to do some soul searching about whether or not you want to also sacrifice your offspring in Iraq as he joins the other f@ggot 'heroes' in slaughtering Iraqi mothers and children.

Another purpose is to give you a 'heads up' as to what some other pathetic parents have to endure when they allow their children to be sacrificed for a worthless cause.

You think any of the warmongers sending your son to Iraq would have gone to Iraq himself?
They didn't 'cut and run'. They 'ran and hide' from Vietnam; and we don't blame them one bit.

It's because people like you don't believe in learning what is really happening why it is so easy to lie and mislead so many of the American people.

You unwittingly are demonstrating a preference for propaganda if you can't stomach the truth about life and death in the comical campaign in Iraq.

That is why we were so shocked on 911; we didn't care to know the truth about what we were doing as a nation to invite a 911.

[cofmanaaron]

Everybody: read Pat Tillman's legacy in the Opinion section. It reminds me of my friend overseas right now. He signed up with the army after 9/11. Now Bush and his administration have used him, Pat, Kevin Tillman, and many others for this ****. The piece was written by Kevin as an epitaph for his dead brother. God, a dead brother. I'm so thankful to god my baby brother isn't there right now.

[heetseeker]

It is nothing new to play politics... politicians do it all the time on the economy,public policy etc... At any time it is wrong but during times of war it is unspeakable...

More than anything else Iraq is a human story... our fallen have left widows, orphans & loved ones... bread-winners have been taken away and mothers and fathers have faced the ultimate indignity of burying their own children..... for every fallen serviceman or woman many other lives have been utterly ruined... the great tradegy of Iraq is that these lives will never appear on any statistical count...

Rather than come clean about this misadventure & try to rally a wounded nation... the administration is peddling fear as policy & brands any who dare to critique it as unpatriotic... are the lives of young Americans so cheap & has the nation become so frigid? Where is the collective sense of rage at what has been done in our name?