Troop Losses on Pace for 2-Year High

At least 12 U.S. troops were killed during a 48-hour period ending Wednesday, putting October on track to be the deadliest month for Americans in Iraq since Marines stormed insurgent-controlled Fallouja in November 2004.

The latest surge in attacks on American military personnel has claimed the lives of 71 troops so far this month, and comes as a sharp rise in civil warfare between Iraq’s Shiite and Sunni sects has left hundreds dead over the last week, including at least 43 Wednesday.

American officials attributed the rise in casualties to an increase in attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which they had expected, as well as to recently changed tactics by U.S. troops, who are flooding Baghdad neighborhoods in an attempt to quell sectarian fighting. Most of the deaths occurred in the capital, where seven troops died in roadside bombings and small-arms attacks.

President Bush acknowledged that the surge in violence could be the Iraqi equivalent of the Tet offensive, the pivotal Vietnam War battle begun in 1968 that helped turn U.S. popular opinion against the war and undermined support for President Johnson.

Asked whether he agreed with a columnist who said that the fighting in Iraq mirrored Tet, Bush said that he “could be right.”

“There’s certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we’re heading into an election,” Bush said in an interview with ABC News.

Bush and his senior aides have taken pains to avoid comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam, and even his seemingly offhand acceptance of the parallel with Tet could give new fuel to critics who say that the United States has become embroiled in a long, unwinnable war.

Bush also said that though he is adhering to his policies in Iraq, he is troubled by the deaths of Americans.

“It breaks my heart, because behind every casualty is somebody with tears in their eyes,” Bush added.

A Pew Research Center for the People & the Press poll published Oct. 5 showed that 58% of the public says the U.S. military effort in Iraq is not going well, up from 48% just a month ago and the highest disapproval rating since the war began in 2003.

Pew’s survey found that 48% of respondents said they would be casting their vote for the House and the Senate on Nov. 7 as a way to vote against the president.

“People are increasingly of the view that the war is not succeeding,” said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. “The recent spike in casualties can only be worsening public opinion.”

The latest war casualties brought to at least 2,783 the number of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq, according to iCasualties.org, a website that tracks deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 130 died in November 2004, the month of the Fallouja offensive.

Attacks on U.S. forces have surged as much as 20% in Iraq during Ramadan, which this year began in late September, officials in Washington said.

“Emotions are more intense,” said Thomas Donnelly, a military analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s a time to attempt dramatic things because people’s awareness is heightened.”

But defense officials and analysts said the sharply higher casualty rate this month also was because of U.S. troops’ increased exposure to fighting during campaigns in Ramadi and Baghdad.

U.S. forces continue to face a resilient Sunni Arab insurgency in cities such as Ramadi, while struggling to quell an outbreak of civil warfare between Shiites and Sunnis and keep Shiite-dominated security forces in check.

Ramadan also has brought an increase in violence against Iraqi civilians, including the kidnapping and beheading last week of 19 young laborers near the city of Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, that sparked a wave of warfare between Shiites and Sunnis in that area.

Iraqi officials said 54 Sunnis and 26 Shiites were killed during four days of violence in the religiously mixed agricultural region along the Tigris River.

Shiite militiamen abducted and executed dozens of Sunnis.

The threat of further escalation loomed Wednesday, as mortar rounds fired from Sunni areas again struck the Shiite city, said Iraqi police Brig. Gen. Nabil Baldawi.

In addition, the whereabouts of 13 carloads of Shiites who were abducted Monday night at an illegal checkpoint in the countryside near Balad remained unknown, police said. Security officials reached by telephone estimated that 40 people disappeared at the checkpoint, but said they had found no bodies and received no demands to gain the abductees’ release.

U.S. and Iraqi officials said two battalions of Interior Ministry “quick-reaction unit” commandos had arrived in the area. The Shiite-dominated force is thought by Sunnis to be involved in sectarian death-squad killings.

But a dusk-to-dawn curfew and the arrival of the forces from the capital appeared to have restored order to Balad and the nearby Sunni village of Duluiya, police and U.S. officials said.

“There have been no casualties [in Balad] in the last 24 hours,” U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jeff Martindale said. U.S. ground forces Wednesday backed up local security forces with patrols and attacks against suspected insurgent positions, Martindale’s statement said.

At least 13 Iraqis were killed and 33 injured Wednesday in attacks targeting U.S. and Iraqi security forces. Among those slain was the director of intelligence for the southern province of Maysan. Four of his guards were also killed in the attack along the road to Basra.

Authorities also discovered the bodies of 34 men and a woman in the capital, all apparent victims of sectarian killings.

The United Nations estimates that at least 100 people a day die violently in Iraq, a country of 26 million.

The American deaths outside Baghdad included three soldiers attached to the 3rd Brigade of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, who were killed as a result of unspecified “enemy action” in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, the military said. A fourth soldier was wounded in the incident.

A Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7 and a soldier assigned to the 1st Armored Division died in operations in Al Anbar province, the Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold west of the capital that is the scene of daily battles with insurgents.

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daragahi@latimes.com

Times staff writers Peter Spiegel and Johanna Neuman in Washington, James Gerstenzang in Greensboro, N.C., and special correspondents in the Iraqi cities of Basra, Ramadi, Samarra, Taji and Tikrit contributed to this report.