2007 Is Deadliest Year for American Troops in Iraq

BAGHDAD — The American military today announced the deaths of five more soldiers, making 2007 the deadliest year for American troops despite a recent downturn, according to an Associated Press count.

At least 852 American military personnel have died in Iraq so far this year — the highest annual toll since the war began in March 2003.

The grim milestone passed despite a sharp drop in American and Iraqi deaths here in recent months, after a 30,000-strong American force buildup. There were 39 deaths in October, compared to 65 in September and 84 in August.

Five American soldiers were killed yesterday in two separate roadside bomb attacks, the director of the Multi-National Force-Iraq's communications division, Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, said.

"We lost five soldiers yesterday in two unfortunate incidents, both involving IEDs," Admiral Smith told reporters in Baghdad's heavily-guarded Green Zone. Later, the military said four of the soldiers died after an explosion near their vehicle in Kirkuk province, and one was killed in Anbar.

With nearly two months left in the year, the American toll has already surpassed that of 2004, when 850 troops died — mostly in larger, more conventional battles like the campaign to cleanse Fallujah of Sunni militants in November, and American clashes with Shiite militiamen in the sect's holy city of Najaf in August.

But the American military in Iraq reached its highest troop levels in Iraq this year — 165,000. Moreover, the military's decision to send soldiers out of large bases and into Iraqi communities means more troops have seen more "contact with enemy forces" than ever before, an America military spokesman in Baghdad, Major Winfield Danielson, said.

"It's due to the troop surge, which allowed us to go into areas that were previously safe havens for insurgents," Major Danielson said Sunday. "Having more soldiers, and having them out in the communities, certainly contributes to our casualties."

Meanwhile, America said it planned to release nine Iranian prisoners in the coming days, including two captured when American troops stormed an Iranian government office in Irbil last January. The office was shut after the raid, but it reopened as an Iranian consulate today, Iraqi and Iranian officials said.

A military spokesman said Iran appears to have kept its promise to stop the flow into Iraq of bomb-making materials and other weaponry that Washington says has inflamed insurgent violence and caused many American troop casualties.

Defense Secretary Gates said last week that Iran had made such assurances to the Iraqi government.

"It's our best judgment that these particular EFPs ... in recent large cache finds do not appear to have arrived here in Iraq after those pledges were made," Admiral Smith said.