The death toll of US soldiers in Iraq reached 4,000 today, days after the fifth anniversary of a war that President George W Bush says the United States is on track to win.
The US military said four soldiers were killed yesterday when a roadside bomb, the biggest killer of American soldiers in Iraq, exploded near their vehicle in southern Baghdad. One soldier was wounded in the attack, which brought the number of US military deaths to 4,000 since the US-led invasion in 2003.
The deaths came on a day when the US-protected "Green Zone", the government and diplomatic compound in central Baghdad, was hit by repeated rocket and mortar fire, part of an upsurge in violence in the capital and elsewhere.
Sunday's violence, in which dozens were killed, underscored the fragility of Iraq's security. There has been an increase in attacks since January, although US military commanders say overall levels of violence are down 60 per cent since last June.
What impact the 4,000 milestone will have on a war-weary American public and the US presidential campaign will be hard to assess in the short term, but war critics are likely to seize on it to boost their case for US troops to be withdrawn.
"You regret every casualty, every loss," US Vice President Dick Cheney said during a visit to Jerusalem. "It may have a psychological effect on the public, but it's a tragedy that we live in a kind of world where that happens."
The US military dismisses such tolls as arbitrary markers. "No casualty is more or less significant than another; each soldier, marine, airman and sailor is equally precious and their loss equally tragic," US military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith said today.