U.S. Troop Death Toll Reaches 3,000

The number of American deaths in the Iraq war has reached the milestone of 3,000 as the Bush administration seeks to overhaul its strategy for an unpopular war that shows little sign of ending.

The latest death came during one of the most violent periods during which the Pentagon says hate and revenge killings between Iraq's sects are now a bigger security problem than ever.

The death of a Texas soldier, announced yesterday by the Pentagon, raised the number of US military deaths in Iraq to at least 3,000, according to an Associated Press count, since the war began in March 2003.

President George Bush is struggling to salvage a military campaign that, more than three-and-a-half years after US forces overran the country, has lost support from the American public. Largely because of that discontent, voters gave Democrats control of the new Congress that convenes this week. Democrats have pledged to focus on the war and Bush's conduct of it.

Three thousand deaths are tiny compared with casualties in other protracted wars America has fought in the last century. There were 58,000 Americans killed in the Vietnam War, 36,000 in the Korean conflict, 405,000 in the Second World War and 116,000 in the First World War, according to US Defence Department figures.

Even so, the steadily mounting toll underscores the relentless violence that the massive US investment in lives and money surpassing $380billion U.S. Dollars has not stabilized the country, and may still be getting worse.