US death toll in Iraq versus that in Vietnam ( 2003-11-14 10:14) (Reuters)
The US 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 US affairs
for more than a generation.
A Reuters analysis of US 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 US forces
number about 130,000 troops + the same number reached in Vietnam by October
1965.
The casualty count for Iraq apparently surpassed the Vietnam figure last
Sunday, when a US soldier killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack south of
Baghdad became the conflict's 393rd American casualty since Operation Iraqi
Freedom began on March 20.
Larger still is the number of American casualties from the broader US war on
terrorism, which has produced 488 military deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, the
Philippines, Southwest Asia and other locations.
Statistics from battle zones outside Iraq show that 91 soldiers have died
since Oct. 7, 2001, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, which US President
George W. Bush launched against Afghanistan's former Taliban regime after the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington killed 3,000 people.
The Bush administration has rejected comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam,
which traumatized Americans a generation ago with a sad procession of military
body bags and television footage of grim wartime cruelty.
Recent opinion polls show public support for the president eroding as he
heads toward the 2004 election, partly because of public concern over the deadly
cycle of guerrilla attacks and suicide bombings in Iraq.
On Thursday, heavy gunfire and explosions echoed across Baghdad as US troops
pounded rebel positions for a second night, and administration officials sought
ways to accelerate a transfer of power to the Iraqi people.
US COMBAT POWER
Because US involvement in Vietnam increased gradually after the French defeat
at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, there is little consensus on when the war in Southeast
Asia began.
Some date the war to the late 1950s. Others say it began on Aug. 5, 1964,
when Lyndon Johnson announced air strikes against North Vietnam in retaliation
for a reported torpedo attack on a US destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin.
However, the Army's start date for the Vietnam War has been set by its Center
of Military History as Dec. 11, 1961, when two helicopter companies consisting
of 32 aircraft and 400 soldiers arrived in the country, an Army public affairs
specialist said.
"It was the first major assemblage of US combat power in Vietnam," explained
Army historian Joe Webb.
Vietnam casualties, which amounted to 25 deaths from 1956 through 1961,
climbed to 53 in 1962, 123 in 1963 and 216 in 1964, Pentagon statistics show.
At the time, the US presence in Vietnam consisted mainly of military
advisers. President John F. Kennedy increased their number from about 960 in
1961 to show Washington's commitment to containing communism.
But not until 1965, after Congress had approved the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution, did Washington begin its massive escalation of the war effort. With
a huge influx of soldiers, casualties in Vietnam soared to 1,926 in 1965 and
peaked at 16,869 in 1968, the year of the Tet Offensive, data show.
In a major revision of US military history in 1995, former Defense Secretary
Robert McNamara said he believed the Gulf of Tonkin torpedo attack never
occurred.
More than 58,000 US military personnel died in Vietnam before the war ended
in the mid-1970s.
In another comparison, British forces that created Iraq in the aftermath of
World War One suffered 2,000 casualties from tribal reprisals, guerrilla attacks
and a jihad proclaimed from the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala, before conditions
stabilized in 1921, according to US military scholars.
Reuters included military deaths both on and off the battlefield for
Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, for comparison with
Vietnam War statistics that made no distinction between hostile and non-hostile
casualties.
On Thursday, US combat deaths totaled 270 for Iraq and 28 for other battle
zones, including Afghanistan.
