Staying the course

Meanwhile, in that war...

Beginning in early August, American and Iraqi security forces began cordoning off some of the capital’s most troubled neighborhoods and sweeping house-by-house in search of militia networks and munitions.

Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, a senior military spokesman in Baghdad, said Thursday that attacks were down by 11 percent in the neighborhoods that had been swept.

But in the capital as a whole, according to military records, attacks are up, from an average of 25.3 per day from June 14 to Aug. 6, to an average of 31 per day since then — a 23 percent increase.

He said the increase was due, in part, to the aggressiveness of the new security operations. “Coalition forces are being much more active in going out and looking for these folks, these death squads and elements that are associated with the sectarian violence,” he said.

Militants “are punching back hard,” he said.

An American soldier assigned to the Third Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, was killed “as a result of enemy action” on Wednesday in Kirkuk Province, the military reported. Two other soldiers were wounded.

According to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a Web site that monitors troop deaths, 44 American troops have been killed this month, which puts October on pace to be the third deadliest month of the conflict for American forces. According to the Web site, 137 Americans were killed in November 2004, and 135 were killed in April 2004.

In Savannah, Ga., a retired American Army Corps of Engineers employee pleaded guilty to soliciting and accepting nearly $50,000 in bribes to help a Kuwaiti realtor obtain contracts with United States Army in Kuwait, the Department of Justice said Thursday.

Death, insurgency, and war profiteering stay their course.