Danger Around Every Corner

ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/GETTY
Soldiers grieve at a service for Specialist Donald Laverne Wheeler Jr., killed by a rocket-propelled grenade while on patrol in Tikrit on Oct. 13

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How Bad Is It?
Statistics are pliable things. Some people contend that the 338 American soldiers who have died in Iraq since the war began--215 in combat, 123 from noncombat causes amount to a hearteningly low toll out of the 130,000-strong U.S. force. But others, including many of the troops, are dismayed that 199 of those deaths--101 combat, 98 noncombat have come since Bush's May 1 declaration that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended." Even though some military officers contend that G.I.s are dying at a slower rate, soldiers say the unpredictability and ever-changing face of the enemy make life in Iraq as dangerous as ever. "Every time you do a knock and search, it's a combat operation," says Colonel Christopher Pease, commander of the 1st Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade. "You don't know where or when you're going to be shot at."

U.S. officials in Iraq say their troops are coming under attack an average of 20 times a day. Most are small-bore, hit-and-run sallies that fail to exact any injuries. Yet seven of the soldiers killed last week were hit by small-arms fire, RPGs or mines. The U.S. has not been able to prevent its foes from getting access to explosives and weaponry. Arms caches can still be found throughout the country, largely unguarded by coalition forces. U.S. officials say they have discovered 105 major military arms dumps and scores of smaller ones storing perhaps 1 million tons of armaments. Even with 6,000 troops dedicated to guarding some of the biggest sites, most of the weaponry is under surveillance only by aerial or electronic means.

One sign that the resistance is hardening: the assaults, says a senior military official, "are increasing in sophistication." He cites more frequent use of improvised explosive devices as well as standoff weapons like mortars. "They've been getting more and more organized," says Sergeant Joseph Teague of the 101st Airborne, whose platoon patrols the town of Ba'aj, southwest of Mosul. Teague has been ambushed twice in the past two weeks. "In the last two attacks," he says, "they've shot at us from all sides."

As U.S. forces take defensive steps to minimize their casualties, the focus of the attacks is shifting to soft targets like embassies, police stations, government buildings. As a result, more and more of the dead are Iraqis, although no one seems to be keeping an official tally. An independent group called Iraq Body Count, a team of researchers tracking civilian deaths, estimates that at least 1,500 Iraqis died violently in Baghdad alone from April 14 through Aug. 31. That works out to more than 10 Iraqi fatalities for every coalition death during the same period. The effect has been to renew anxieties among ordinary citizens, especially in the Iraqi capital, and to kindle worries that anti-American insurgents are broadening their targets to include anyone seen as collaborating with the U.S.

The most damaging assaults against these soft targets are suicide attacks, and they are on the rise. Since early August, nine car bombs, including three in the past week, have taken the lives of more than 130 Iraqis and others cooperating with the occupation. Hundreds of Iraqis have been wounded security guards, ordinary citizens, children. A U.S. official says locals working for the U.S.-organized Iraqi Facilities Protection Service, which guards the outer perimeter of many strategic sites, have paid a steep price. At the Baghdad Hotel, Iraqi guards shot up a suicide bomber's vehicle as it approached, preventing the bomb from detonating next to the hotel; six guards died in the explosion.

The danger zones are also expanding. Attacks have been spreading beyond the Sunni triangle, the perilous swath stretching north and west from Baghdad that is the home turf of Saddam's supporters. Two weeks ago, the normally tranquil city of Kirkuk experienced a run of resistance fighters' nightly raids aimed at U.S. patrols and the local police who support them. U.S. and Iraqi officials fear that guerrillas from the triangle are trying to open a new front up north. Last week's violence in the Shi'ite stronghold of Baghdad's Sadr City, led by the rabble-rousing cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, may signal a surge of sectarian anger from a population that had been largely quiet.

Despite all that, a senior U.S. military official in Iraq insists there is no resistance, as such. "Stop right there," he said when he heard the word. "Resistance is way too strong. Look around. We're not facing some kind of organized guerrilla force. What's happening is that peace and stability are taking hold, and the more they do, noncompliant forces are becoming more desperate and radicalized."