Guardian: Theatre of war (about US wounded in Iraq)

[dw]

Published in http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1061695,00.html">The Guardian Monday October 13, 2003

Almost every day brings news of another US death in Iraq, but we hear almost nothing of the hundreds - maybe thousands - wounded by Saddam loyalists. In a rare visit to an army hospital, Rory McCarthy glimpses the victims of a hidden war

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More than 320 US troops have died since America invaded Iraq, but hundreds more have been injured in the line of duty, many so seriously that they will be disabled for life. This is the price the commander-in-chief, George Bush, asked of his troops when, after the fall of Baghdad, he challenged Iraq's many resistance fighters into battle. "Bring them on," Bush declared on July 2. And on the fighters came, their attacks ever more sophisticated and ever more deadly. According to the military's official count, up to six soldiers are now killed each week in Iraq six months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, and at least another 40 are injured.

The military has never admitted the total number of soldiers injured so far, though the figure appears to run into the thousands. At the combat hospital in Balad, one of a handful of military medical centres in Iraq, a total of 1,088 patients were admitted for treatment between May and the end of August. As many as 916 had to be evacuated, although not all suffered combat injuries (soldiers who break their ankles in football games are also sent home to recover.) One report last month said 6,000 US soldiers had already been evacuated home, of whom more than 1,000 were designated "wounded in action" - twice the toll for the first Gulf war.

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The problem facing American infantrymen is the resistance fighters' weapon of choice: homemade bombs, known in military parlance as improvised explosive devices (IEDs). They are artillery shells or grenades hidden by the roadside and detonated from the bushes with a command wire as a US convoy passes. The blast forces the convoy to halt and then the fighters open fire. "We return fire but they have got the choice of ground. They get as many shots off as they can and they back off," Ryan says. Soldiers now stuff sandbags into the flooring of their Humvees for protection from the bombs and otherwise hope today is not the day the medevac is coming for them.

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[Gloria]

1. Kick.....

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