Iraqi Deaths Mount, Many Americans Unaware
A bomb-rigged truck sent a deadly storm of metal, stone and jagged plaster through worshippers leaving a Sunni mosque Saturday, killing at least 39 people in a possible sign of escalating internal battles between insurgents and those opposing them.
The motive for the attack was not immediately clear, but it carried the hallmarks of an increasingly bloody struggle for control of the volatile Anbar province — a hotbed of anti-U.S. guerrillas since the uprising in Fallujah in 2004 that helped galvanize the insurgency.
U.S. military envoys and pro-government leaders have worked hard to sway clan chiefs and other influential Anbar figures to turn against the militants, which include foreign jihadists fighting under the banner of al Qaeda in Iraq. The extremists have fought back with targeted killings and bombings against fellow Sunnis.
But the blast in Habbaniyah — in the heart of insurgent territory about 50 miles west of Baghdad — was among the deadliest against civilians in Anbar and could signal a sharp rise in the level of violence.
The imam of the mosque had spoken out against extremists — most recently in this Friday's sermon, local residents said. Also, many people in the neighborhood work for the Iraqi military and police forces, who have come under frequent militants strikes for years.
The truck, filled with building materials such as stone and plaster board, was blown apart as worshippers left following mid-afternoon prayers. Rescuers, including U.S. soldiers, pulled survivors from the debris. The U.S. military sealed off the area and said it opened its medical facilities to "the most life-threatening injuries" among the more than 60 hurt.
A local police official, Lt. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed, placed the death toll at 39. But authorities warned it could rise.
The attack came a day after U.S. troops raided a factory complex in Fallujah full of propane tanks and industrial chemicals that the military said could be used to make bombs. Back-to-back bombings in the past week released chlorine gas and raised worries that insurgents are experimenting with chemicals to boost the terror level of their attacks.
In Other Developments:
These latest civilian casualties come as a new AP-Ipsos poll gauges the awareness Americans have for the rising death toll in Iraq.
The poll found that while many Americans are keenly aware of how many U.S. forces have lost their lives in Iraq, many woefully underestimate the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed.
When the poll was conducted earlier this month, a little more than 3,100 U.S. troops had been killed. The midpoint estimate among those polled was right on target, at about 3,000.
Far from a vague statistic, the death toll is painfully real for many Americans. Seventeen percent in the poll know someone who has been killed or wounded in Iraq. And among adults under 35, those closest to the ages of those deployed, 27 percent know someone who has been killed or wounded.
The number of Iraqis killed, however, is much harder to pin down, and that uncertainty is perhaps reflected in Americans' tendency to lowball the Iraqi death toll — by tens of thousands.
Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated at more than 54,000 and could be much higher (some unofficial estimates range into the hundreds of thousands). The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq reports more than 34,000 deaths in 2006 alone.
Among those polled for the AP survey, however, the median estimate of Iraqi deaths was 9,890. (The median is the point at which half the estimates were higher and half lower.)
Christopher Gelpi, a Duke University political scientist who tracks public opinion on war casualties, said a better understanding of the Iraqi death toll probably wouldn't change already negative public attitudes toward the war much. People in democracies generally don't shy away from inflicting civilian casualties, he said, and they may be even more tolerant of them in situations such as Iraq, where many of the civilian deaths are caused by other Iraqis.
"You have to look at who's doing the killing," said Neal Crawford, a restaurant manager in Suttons Bay, Mich., who guessed that about 10,000 Iraqis had been killed. "If these people are dying because a roadside bomb goes off or if there's an insurgent attack in a marketplace, it's an unfortunate circumstance of war — people die."
Gelpi said that while Americans may not view Iraqi deaths through the same prism as American losses, they may use the Iraqi death toll to gauge progress, or lack thereof, on the U.S. effort to promote a stable, secure democracy in Iraq.
To many, he said, "the fact that so many are being killed is an indication that we're not succeeding."
Whatever their understanding of the respective death tolls, three-quarters of those polled said the numbers of both Americans and Iraqis who have been killed are "unacceptable." Two-thirds said they tend to feel upset when a soldier dies, while the rest say such deaths are unfortunate but part of what war is about.
Perhaps surprisingly, the poll found little difference in attitudes toward the war between those who did and did not know someone who had been killed or wounded. There was a difference, however, in their opinions on whether opponents are right to criticize the war.
About half of those who know someone who has been killed or wounded felt it is right to criticize the war, compared with two-thirds of those who don't have a personal connection.
The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,002 adults, conducted Feb. 12-15, had a 3 percentage point margin of error.