The True Number of GIs Wounded in Iraq

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AMERICA'S HIDDEN BATTLEFIELD TOLL

NEW FIGURES REVEAL THE TRUE NUMBER OF GIS WOUNDED IN IRAQ

> By Jason Burke in London and Paul Harris in New York

> The Observer

> Sunday, September 14, 2003

>

> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1041822,00.html

>

> The true scale of American casualties in Iraq is revealed today by new

> figures obtained by The Observer, which show that more than 6,000 American

> servicemen have been evacuated for medical reasons since the beginning of

> the war, including more than 1,500 American soldiers who have been

wounded,

> many seriously.

>

> The figures will shock many Americans, who believe that casualties in the

> war in Iraq have been relatively light. Recent polls show that support for

> President George Bush and his administration's policy in Iraq has been

> slipping.

>

> The number of casualties will also increase pressure on Bush to share the

> burden of occupying Iraq with more nations. Attempts to broker an

> international alliance to pour more men and money into Iraq foundered

> yesterday when Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, brusquely rejected

a

> French proposal as 'totally unrealistic'.

>

> Three US soldiers were killed last week, bringing the number of combat

dead

> since hostilities in Iraq were declared officially over on 1 May to 68. A

> similar number have died in accidents. It is military police policy to

> announce that a soldier has been wounded only if they were involved in an

> incident that involved a death.

>

> Critics of the policy say it hides the true extent of the casualties. The

> new figures reveal that 1,178 American soldiers have been wounded in

combat

> operations since the war began on 20 March.

>

> It is believed many of the American casualties evacuated from Iraq are

> seriously injured. Modern body armour, worn by almost all American troops,

> means wounds that would normally kill a man are avoided. However

vulnerable

> arms and legs are affected badly. This has boosted the proportion of

maimed

> among the injured.

>

> There are also concerns that many men serving in Iraq will suffer

> psychological trauma. Experts at the National Army Museum in London said

> studies of soldiers in the First and Second World Wars showed that it was

> prolonged exposure to combat environments that was most damaging. Some

> American units, such as the Fourth Infantry Division, have been involved

in

> frontline operations for more than six months.

>

> Andrew Robertshaw, an expert at the museum, said wars also claimed

> casualties after they were over. 'Soldiers were dying from injuries

> sustained during World War I well into the 1920s,' he said.

>

> British soldiers are rotated more frequently than their American

> counterparts. The Ministry of Defence has recently consulted the National

> Army Museum about psychological disorders suffered by combatants in

previous

> wars in a bid to avoid problems.

>

> The wounded return to the USA with little publicity. Giant C-17 transport

> jets on medical evacuation missions land at Andrews Air Force Base, near

> Washington, every night.

>

> Battlefield casualties are first treated at Army field hospitals in Iraq

> then sent to Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre in Germany, where they are

> stabilised.

>

> Andrews is the first stop back home. As the planes taxi to a halt,

> gangplanks are lowered and the wounded are carried or walk out. A fleet of

> ambulances and buses meet the C-17s most nights to take off the most

> seriously wounded. Those requiring urgent operations and amputations are

> ferried to America's two best military hospitals, the Walter Reed Army

> Medical Centre, near Washington, and the National Naval Medical Centre,

> Bethesda.

>

> The hospitals are busy. Sometimes all 40 of Walter Reed's intensive care

> beds are full.

>

> Dealing with the aftermath of amputations and blast injuries is common.

> Mines, home-made bombs and rocket-propelled grenades are the weapons of

> choice of the Iraqi resistance fighters. They cause the sort of wounds

that

> will cost a soldier a limb.

>

> The less badly wounded stay overnight at the air base, where an indoor

> tennis club and a community centre have been turned into a medical staging

> facility. Many have little but the ragged uniforms on their backs. A local

> volunteer group, called America's Heroes of Freedom, has set up on the

base

> to provide them with fresh clothes, food packages and toiletries. 'This is

> our way of saying, " We have not forgotten you, " ' said group founder Susan

> Brewer.

>

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