New Delhi: In what can be called a grim milestone for the US, in Iraq the number of army casualties has now crossed 4,000.
The US Army announced this on Monday, just days after the fifth anniversary of a war that President George W Bush says the United States is on track to win.
The army said in a statement that four soldiers were killed late on Sunday when a roadside bomb, the biggest killer of American soldiers in Iraq, exploded near their vehicle in southern Baghdad. One soldier was wounded in the attack.
The deaths came on a day when the US-protected ‘Green Zone’, the government and diplomatic compound in central Baghdad, was hit by repeated rocket and mortar fire, part of an upsurge in violence in the capital and elsewhere.
The violence, in which dozens were killed, underscored the fragility of Iraq's security.
There has been an increase in attacks since January, although US Army commanders say overall levels of violence are down 60 per cent since last June.
What impact the 4,000 milestone will have on a war-weary American public and the US presidential campaign will be hard to assess in the short term, but war critics are likely to seize on it to boost their case for US troops to be withdrawn.
The US Army dismisses such tolls as arbitrary markers.
"It is artificial in the sense that somehow the 4,000th tragic loss somehow will be different from the first," US Army spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith said.
Anthony Cordesman, a respected Iraq analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the 4,000 death could trigger another wave of polarised debate.
"Those who oppose the war will see it as further reason to end it. Those who support it, will point to military progress and say that future casualties will be much lower," he said.
Although Americans are more preoccupied with domestic economic troubles, the Iraq war is still an important issue in the presidential campaign, with Democratic hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama calling for a timetable for withdrawal.
Bush said in a speech marking the 5th anniversary of the war on March 19 that the United States was on track for victory and said withdrawing troops, who now number about 160,000, would embolden al Qaeda and neighbouring Iran.
He said he had no regrets about the war, which has pushed his approval ratings near the lowest level of his presidency, but acknowledged the "high cost in lives and treasure".
Bush launched the war in March 2003 hoping for a quick victory with minimal casualties.
The Iraqi army was quickly defeated, but within months insurgent attacks had bogged down US forces who struggled to develop a strategy to defeat them.
(With agency inputs)
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