U.S. leaders have claimed that the metrics of casualties being inflicted on the insurgents in Iraq prove that the war was going better for the United States and its Iraqi allies. But unfortunately there are solid grounds to dispute that assertion.

First, on Friday the Department of Defense announced that 9,400 active-duty U.S. troops in Iraq who were scheduled to finish one-year tours in January will be kept there an extra seven to 10 days. The number of U.S. troops in Iraq currently remains high, around 147,000. Keeping and boosting troop numbers does not indicate a security strategy that is going well at a time when the number of attacks on U.S. and allied forces are remorselessly increasing.

Second, as we have noted before in these Iraq Benchmarks columns, kill figures for insurgents and figures of those arrested are usually in any war and military operation vastly inflated by both genuine confusion and wishful thinking. And the more solid reason for skepticism, unfortunately, is that the metrics, or numbers of measurement, on casualties suffered by U.S. and allied Iraqi military forces has been going up remorselessly all around Iraq again.

Worse yet, this has been happening right after the counter-insurgency offensive by U.S. and allied forces in Tel Afar and while the insurgents were carrying out a bombing blitz of almost unprecedented intensity in the capital Baghdad itself.

The clear conclusion to be inferred from these developments is that even - or especially - if the U.S. estimates of casualties being inflicted on the insurgents are correct, the insurgency is steadily growing in the numbers of active participants it call can upon and in its capabilities to inflict attacks on its targets.

According to official Department of Defense figures cited by the Iraq Index Project of the Brookings Institution in the eight days from Sept. 14 to Sept. 21, 11 U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq. All of them were killed in action.

That was a massive increase over the three U.S soldiers who were killed in action over the previous six days. The rate at which U.S. soldiers are being killed in Iraq, therefore, rose from only 0.5 a day from Sept. 8 through Sept. 13 to 1.375 a day from Sept. 14 to Sept. 21, an increase of more than 250 percent.

By Wednesday, Sept. 21, the total U.S. military dead in Iraq from the start of major combat operations on March 19, 2003, was 1,907 of whom 1,484 were killed in action and 423 in non-hostile incidents, the IIP said.

This was still lower than the comparable eight days of Aug. 24 to Aug. 31, when two U.S. soldiers died every day in Iraq. But it also dramatically ended the lull in fewer deaths in action inflicted on U.S. forces during the first two weeks of this month.

The number of U.S. troops wounded in action from the beginning of hostilities on March 19, 2003, through Wednesday, Sept. 21, was 14,641, an increase of 162 in eight days, the IIP said. This two was markedly worse than any figures over the past six weeks.

Only 117 American soldiers had been injured in the six days from Sept. 8 to Sept. 13.. And the latest figure was also significantly worse than the 145 injured from Aug. 24 to Aug. 31. It was also almost 50 percent worse than the two weeks of Aug.3-10, when 108 U.S. troops were injured and July 28 to Aug. 3, when 112 were injured.

The casualties inflicted over the past week and a half by the insurgents on Iraqi troops and police were even worse. Indeed, if the current levels continue for the rest of this month, September will see by the far the worse casualties inflected on these forces of the entire insurgency so far.

Some 95 Iraqi troops and police were killed during the eight days from Sept. 14 through Sept. 21, almost four times as many as in the previous six days from Sept. 8 through Sept. 13. Indeed, far more Iraqi soldiers and police were killed during the most recent eight day period than in the nearly two weeks before that: From Sept. 1 through Sept. 13, only 78 were killed.

That means in the Sept. 14-21 period, the insurgents succeeding in killing security forces at a rate of almost 12 a day, compared with only six a day from Sept. 1 through Sept. 13, almost doubling their rate of killing. This rate of attrition is almost as bad as the 83 killed in the six days from Aug. 18 to Aug. 24, an average of just under 14 fatalities per day.

In all, the total number of Iraqi police and military killed from June 1, 2003 to Wednesday, Sept. 14 was 3,225 according to the IIP figures.

Because of the lull in killing security force members during the first half of September, even if the insurgents manage to inflict comparable losses on Iraqi troops for the rest of September, the over all Iraqi military death toll for the month will be "only" around 250, well below record 304 fatalities they suffered in July or the 296 in June.

But if the insurgents could keep this rate up for a full month, they would kill as many as 380 Iraqi troops and police in a single month, a vast increase in their previous overall capabilities.

There is another sobering statistic from the past two weeks of military operations in Iraq: By Sept. 21, there had been 31 multiple fatality bombings around the country in three weeks since the beginning of the month. That meant that with nine days of September still to go, it was already by far the worst month for multiple fatality bombings in the entire insurgency.

The previous worst month was August with 27, and before that July with 26. These figures also document an insurgency that is remorselessly spreading in area and getting worse in intensity and capabilities.

About 9,400 active duty U.S. troops in Iraq who are scheduled to finish one-year tours in January will be kept there an extra seven to 10 days, the Pentagon said Friday.

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