WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq has reached 2,500, the Pentagon said on Thursday, more than three years into a conflict that finds U.S. and allied forces locked in a struggle with a resilient insurgency.
The milestone came two days after President George W. Bush, hoping to bolster faltering U.S. public support for the war, made a surprise trip to Iraq. In Congress, some Democrats reiterated calls for a timetable to pull out the 127,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
"Any president who goes through a time of war feels very deeply the responsibility for sending men and women into harm's way, he feels very deeply the pain that the families feel, and this president is no different," said White House spokesman Tony Snow.
"One of the things the president has said is that these people will not die in vain."
Of the 2,500 deaths, the Pentagon said, 1,972 have come in combat and 528 in noncombat circumstances such as vehicle accidents or suicides. In addition, the Pentagon said 18,490 troops have been wounded in the war, which began in March 2003 with a U.S.-led invasion to topple President Saddam Hussein.
On an average day in the war, about two U.S. troops are killed. The average monthly death toll is 64.
Rep. Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat, noted the "sad news that we have reached a sad milestone," and the House of Representatives observed a moment of silence.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed with some estimates of the toll around 40,000. Sectarian violence surged after February's bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, with hundreds of people killed every month in Baghdad alone. Continued...
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