Casualty count from camp raid questioned

The battle was the first led by Iraqi security forces.
WASHINGTON POST
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- New details from an intense battle between insurgents and Iraqi police commandos supported by U.S. forces cast doubt Thursday on Iraqi government claims that 85 insurgents were killed at what was described as a clandestine training camp.
Accounts of the fighting continued to indicate that a major battle involving dozens of insurgents occurred Tuesday on the eastern shore of Lake Tharthar, about 50 miles northwest of Baghdad. But two U.S. military officials said Thursday that no bodies were found by American troops who later arrived at the scene. A spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry, meanwhile, said he presumed the death toll was accurate but played down the scope of the fighting.
"I wouldn't call it a major incident," said the spokesman, Sabar Kadhim. Its significance, he said, was that it was "the first major operation" to be conceived and executed by the nascent Iraqi security forces with U.S. soldiers in a supporting role.
Lethal count
The announced death toll ranked the operation as the most lethal since November, when U.S. forces supported by Iraqi troops pushed into the western city of Fallujah, killing some 1,000 suspected insurgents. This time, however, Iraqis took the lead, with only a squad from a U.S. liaison unit -- the 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment of the 42nd Infantry Division -- involved in the initial assault.
The reported rout appeared to bolster recent claims by U.S. commanders that Iraq's beleaguered security forces are improving. U.S. officials have said repeatedly that American troops will withdraw from Iraq only after the Iraqis are able to defend the country.
Maj. Richard Goldenberg, spokesman for the 42nd Infantry Division, said, "I can't confirm the [Iraqi] estimate." By the time additional U.S. ground forces arrived, he said, "the insurgent forces who had fled ... were able to recover their casualties and take them with them."
Noting that an Islamic militant group had said 11 insurgents were killed, Goldenberg said, "I would tell you that somewhere between 11 and 80 lies an accurate number."
Goldenberg said crewmen who provided support in two Apache attack helicopters and an OH-58D Kiowa reconnaissance helicopter later estimated that 80 to 100 insurgents participated in the fighting. Asked how 85 bodies could have been subsequently carried away, Goldenberg referred the question to the Interior Ministry.
Significant effect
Goldenberg said uncertainty surrounding the casualty figures should not take away from the performance of the Iraqi commandos. "We could spend years going back and forth on body counts," he said. "The important thing is the effect this has on the organized insurgency."
U.S. military officers say they believe insurgents, including foreign fighters, were using the area as a temporary camp equipped with tents, bomb-making manuals, foreign identification cards, ammunition and guns. One senior U.S. officer said the camp's location near the restive cities of Fallujah, Samarra and Ramadi may indicate that the insurgents can no longer take refuge in major urban areas and have been forced into more remote locations.
Iraqi security forces have been engaged in several fierce battles this week. In the city of Rabia near the Syrian border Thursday, Iraqi police mistook Iraqi soldiers dressed as civilians for insurgents and opened fire. In the ensuing gun battle, three soldiers and two police officers were killed, according to Ahmed Mohammed Khalaf Jabori, police chief for the nearby city of Mosul.
In Kirkuk on Tuesday, Iraqi army soldiers fended off an attack by an unknown number of insurgents, killing three and wounding one, according to an Iraqi army spokesman, Lt. Col. Khalil Ismael Zawbaei.