February 11, 2009 5:36 PM
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Report: Attacks In Iraq At 2-Year High
Attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops and Iraqi civilians jumped sharply in recent months to the highest level since Iraq regained its sovereignty in June 2004, the Pentagon told Congress on Monday in the latest indication of that country's spiraling violence.
In a report issued the same day Robert Gates took over as defense secretary, the Pentagon said that from mid-August to mid-November, the weekly average number of attacks increased 22 percent from the previous three months. The worst violence was in Baghdad and in the western province of Anbar, long the focus of activity by Sunni insurgents.
Meanwhile Monday, the U.S. military announced the deaths of three U.S. military personnel, raising to 60 the number of Americans killed in December. One soldier died when a Bradley fighting vehicle rolled over north of Baghdad on Monday, and a Marine and a soldier died of combat wounds in separate incidents Friday and Saturday, it said.
At least 2,948 members of the U.S. military have died since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
At a ceremonial swearing-in attended by President Bush, Gates warned that failure in Iraq would be a "calamity that would haunt our nation, impair our credibility and endanger Americans for decades to come." He said he intended to go to Iraq soon to get the "unvarnished" advice of U.S. commanders on how to stabilize the country.
A bar chart in the Pentagon's report to Congress gave no exact numbers but indicated the weekly average had approached 1,000 in the latest period, up from about 800 per week from the May-to-August period. Statistics provided separately by the Pentagon said weekly attacks had averaged 959 in the latest period.
The report also said the Iraqi government's failure to end sectarian violence has eroded ordinary Iraqis' confidence in their future. That conclusion reflects some of the Bush administration's doubt about the ability of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to make the hard decisions U.S. officials insist are needed to quell the violence.
"The failure of the government to implement concrete actions in these areas has contributed to a situation in which, as of October 2006, there were more Iraqis who expressed a lack of confidence in their government's ability to improve the situation than there were in July 2006," it said, calling for urgent action in Baghdad.
In other developments:
A car bomb killed five people and wounded at least 19 near a vegetable market in the southern Sunni area of Sadiya.
Late in the day, police said they had found 44 bodies across the capital, some of them handcuffed, blindfolded and showing signs of torture — often the hallmarks of reprisal killings by Shiite Muslim and Sunni Arab death squads.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday she would not support a short-term increase in U.S. troop presence in Iraq unless it was part of a more comprehensive plan to stabilize the country. Clinton also offered the broadest indication yet that she was close to a decision on whether to enter the 2008 Democratic presidential field.
Iraqi police said American troops stormed a house in southeastern Baghdad, killing one man. Referring to the same incident, the U.S. military said troops killed one terrorist and detained two suspects after coming under fire at a suspected al Qaeda hideout.
Late Monday, gunmen with rocket-propelled grenades attacked two Sunni mosques in Ghazaliyah, a neighborhood in western Baghdad, but armed residents forced them to flee, authorities said. Police said there were no reports of casualties.
The Iraqi Red Crescent shut down its Baghdad operations Monday, a day after gunmen seized 30 of the aid group's workers and volunteers. Sixteen guards, drivers and other workers, along with two visitors and three guards from the nearby Dutch Embassy, were released after several hours in captivity, the Red Crescent said. "We gave orders to our Baghdad staff to stop working till further notice. We renew our calls for the release of the kidnapped persons," said Mazin Abdellaha, the Iraqi Red Crescent's secretary-general.
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. In a report issued the same day Robert Gates took over as defense secretary, the Pentagon said that from mid-August to mid-November, the weekly average number of attacks increased 22 percent from the previous three months. The worst violence was in Baghdad and in the western province of Anbar, long the focus of activity by Sunni insurgents.
Meanwhile Monday, the U.S. military announced the deaths of three U.S. military personnel, raising to 60 the number of Americans killed in December. One soldier died when a Bradley fighting vehicle rolled over north of Baghdad on Monday, and a Marine and a soldier died of combat wounds in separate incidents Friday and Saturday, it said.
At least 2,948 members of the U.S. military have died since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
At a ceremonial swearing-in attended by President Bush, Gates warned that failure in Iraq would be a "calamity that would haunt our nation, impair our credibility and endanger Americans for decades to come." He said he intended to go to Iraq soon to get the "unvarnished" advice of U.S. commanders on how to stabilize the country.
A bar chart in the Pentagon's report to Congress gave no exact numbers but indicated the weekly average had approached 1,000 in the latest period, up from about 800 per week from the May-to-August period. Statistics provided separately by the Pentagon said weekly attacks had averaged 959 in the latest period.
The report also said the Iraqi government's failure to end sectarian violence has eroded ordinary Iraqis' confidence in their future. That conclusion reflects some of the Bush administration's doubt about the ability of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to make the hard decisions U.S. officials insist are needed to quell the violence.
"The failure of the government to implement concrete actions in these areas has contributed to a situation in which, as of October 2006, there were more Iraqis who expressed a lack of confidence in their government's ability to improve the situation than there were in July 2006," it said, calling for urgent action in Baghdad.
In other developments:
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