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Fourth Deadliest Month in Iraq since March ?03

The United States saw their death toll for the month of October 2006 reach one hundred troops this last Sunday. When a Marine was killed in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, America was notified that it had experienced its fourth deadliest month of the war in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion to oust dictator Saddam Hussein began in March 2003. Nearly a week ago, Pentagon spokesman Eric Ruff said when questioned about a rise in violence that ?The level of attacks has gone up, true.?

Noting that the past month had been the holy month of Ramadan, and that mid-term elections were not so far away, Ruff said ?It would seem that if they (the insurgents) can increase the violence, they can increase opposition to the war and have an influence against the president.? Calls by Democrats and left-leaning anti-war demonstrators to pull out of Iraq or seek some sort of ?peace with honor? along the lines of the end of the Vietnam War have been met with scorn by Republicans, who deride Democrats as ?Defeatocrats? if they favor a U.S. pullout.

A recent bipartisan, independent commission chaired by Bush family friend and former Secretary of State James Baker had been expected in recent weeks to recommend to the White House changes in Iraq strategy. While Americans have been made uneasy by the apparent lack of gains in Iraq, President George W. Bush has called attention to the democratic advances in the country but still appeared, until recently, jarringly inflexible in how he has conducted the war. Many generals in the field, as well as retired officers, have criticized the president on this.