US military death toll in Iraq nears 1,000

US: The US military death toll in Iraq is approaching 1,000, with the danger faced by American troops undiminished in the two…

US: The US military death toll in Iraq is approaching 1,000, with the danger faced by American troops undiminished in the two months since the formation of an interim Iraqi government.

The US transferred sovereignty to the interim government headed by Prime Minister Mr Iyad Allawi on June 28th, officially ending the occupation.

However, more than 137,000 US troops and 23,000 allied foreign soldiers remain in Iraq protecting Mr Allawi's government and fighting a persistent insurgency that has left much of the country a battleground.

Since the March 2003 invasion to topple Saddam, 976 US troops have been killed in Iraq, the Pentagon said yesterday, while another 6,916 have been wounded.

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The average monthly US military death toll has been 55 troops in the 17½ months of war. Forty-two US troops died in Iraq in June. After the hand-over, 54 were killed in July, and 66 last month.

"The hand-over to the Iraqis of political authority had virtually no impact on the military balance," said a retired army colonel, Col Andrew Bacevich, a Boston University international relations professor.

"It didn't make the forces of order substantially stronger because Iraqi government forces did not somehow materialise instantly just because there was a new government.

"We basically have the same number of forces, mostly US forces, and the same number, if not a larger number, of insurgents."

The worst months this year were April (135 US military dead) and May (80 dead), when violence flared simultaneously in the Shia Muslim south and in the Sunni city Falluja.