BAGHDAD, Nov. 6 -- The U.S. military announced Tuesday that five soldiers and a sailor had been killed a day earlier, making 2007 the deadliest year for American troops since the start of the war in Iraq.
The record death toll of at least 852 U.S. military personnel killed this year underscores the high cost of the American troop increase, launched in February, which has begun to drive down the sectarian violence that once gripped much of the country.
The The strategy was to interject our soldiers between the Iraqi citizens and the terrorists, insurgents and militias," Lt. Col. Douglas A. Ollivant, chief of plans for American forces in Baghdad, said in an interview. "A regrettable consequence of that is your casualties go up."