Military Statistics

The U.S. military said Sunday that the number of attacks by militants in the last week dropped to a level not seen in Iraq since March 2004. About 300 violent incidents were recorded in the seven-day period that ended Friday, down from a weekly high of nearly 1,600 in mid-June last year, according to a chart provided by the military. The announcement appeared aimed at allaying fears that an uprising by militiamen loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr could unravel security gains since 28,500 additional American troops were deployed in Iraq in a buildup that reached its height in June.

In this besieged capital, it was a rare good-news story: Killings had plummeted by as much as 50% since U.S. and Iraqi forces hit the streets last month in a show of strength after the sectarian bloodbath of July. "We're actually seeing progress out there," Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the chief military spokesman here, said when making the announcement. Not so fast.

U.S. forces killed or captured about 15,000 suspected militants in Iraq last year, the top U.S. commander in the country said Wednesday, suggesting that the American military has underestimated the strength of the insurgency. The new figures seemed to show that previous estimates of an insurgent force of 6,000 to 9,000 fighters were inaccurate, Army Gen. George W. Casey said in a rare meeting with the U.S. media here.

The top U.S. general in the Middle East said Tuesday that the failure of insurgents to prevent millions of Iraqis from voting in January showed that the violent guerrilla movement was fizzling. Citing estimates from field commanders, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, told a Senate committee that approximately 3,500 insurgents were involved in planning and executing the roughly 300 attacks on election day, Jan. 30.

In a rare look at how the Defense Department tracks non-U.S. casualties in the war in Iraq, the Pentagon has estimated that about 26,000 Iraqis were killed or wounded by insurgents between Jan. 1, 2004, and Sept. 16 of this year. The Pentagon, in response to questions from congressional staffers, provided daily casualty estimates -- those killed and wounded -- over six time periods, the most recent period ending Sept. 16.

President Bush offered only a few pieces of specific evidence Sunday to support his assertion that "we are winning the war in Iraq." And like so much in Iraq, even those are hotly debated. The president said more than 126 Iraqi combat battalions were now engaged in "fighting the enemy" and "more than 50 are taking the lead." Those numbers are based on current Pentagon estimates of Iraqi troop strength, officials said. An Iraqi battalion includes about 600 men.

The U.S. military lacks sufficient personnel to meet the nation's current war and peacekeeping demands throughout the world in coming years, despite steps being taken by the Army to stretch its ranks and increase the number of soldiers available for combat, according to a Pentagon advisory board. The report by the Defense Science Board, a panel of outside advisors to Defense Secretary Donald H.

They call themselves "America's Army," and it fits, for they come from our workaday ranks. That guy who changes your car's oil might command a tank on weekends. Or maybe your boss trades her high heels and power suit once a month for military garb and a gun. But the weekend warriors of the National Guard are hurting. Faced with lean budgets in a post-Cold War world, the National Guard finds itself struggling along with the rest of the country's military monolith.

Seven years after the Gulf War, the United States is on the verge of another massive military action against Saddam Hussein. A look at the issues and the military buildup in the region: ECONOMIC SANCTIONS Within days of Iraq's occupation of Kuwait in 1990, the U.N. Security Council imposed strict economic sanctions on Iraq, most prominently an embargo on oil sales. After a U.S.

From the world's farthest corners, Argentina and Australia are in. But Arab powers and former partners Egypt and Syria are out. And front-line states Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have a foot in each camp. Seven years after the Persian Gulf War, the United States this week put finishing touches on a new coalition supporting the use of military force against Iraq if Baghdad continues to block United Nations inspectors from seeking out weapons of mass destruction.