Baghdad, Iraq – The U.S. military said Thursday that four more American troops were killed Wednesday, a Marine in the central city of Ramadi and three soldiers targeted by a car bombing in southwest Baghdad.
Their deaths, along with those of 14 Marines in western Iraq announced earlier, brought Wednesday’s toll for U.S. forces to 18.
The start of August has been among the bloodiest stretches for American troops since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and nonactive-duty service members have borne the brunt. The 20 Marines killed in two separate incidents this week were reservists, and the soldiers killed Wednesday were from the Georgia National Guard.
About 30 percent of the 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are from the National Guard and Reserve.
The news of more U.S. fatalities came on a day in which the Iraqi prime minister announced a new security plan and said Iraqi forces were making the country safer, while the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq told reporters that data showed the tempo of insurgent attacks was decreasing.
“The security situation is improving, especially Iraqi security forces with regard to both quality and quantity,” said Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who outlined a 12-point security program for Iraq.
Under the new plan, four separate intelligence services will be consolidated into one central operation, and responsibility over security of the country’s infrastructure – such as oil pipelines and the power grid – will be put in the hands of Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi.
Al-Jaafari provided few other details of the plan, beyond general pledges, for example, to secure Iraq’s borders and improve relations with its neighbors.
At a later news conference, Air Force Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, the military spokesman, said, “The numbers that we see indicate that (insurgents) can’t generate the same tempo” of attacks as in previous months.
The 13 car bombs detonated across Iraq last week represented the fewest since April, Alston said, although he declined to provide data for other forms of insurgent attacks such as roadside bombs.
“This is not an expanding insurgency,” Alston added.
