There was news of a U.S. Helicopter being shot down near Latifiya in Iraq. However, the number of casualties is not yet known. There are also questions whether the helicopter exploded or was only damaged. Eyewitnesses say that ‘the helicopter was shot, moved right and left and landed down very hard, there was no explosion heard’.

It is being considered that the militants used anti-aircraft guns to fire at the helicopter. This incident has spurred fears that the militants have studied the flight pattern of helicopters or have access to advanced weapons.

There was a casualty of four British and four American soldiers being killed at a roadside bomb attack. This incident took place in the city Basra’s western edge. Ever since the war started there has been a heavy damage to the life and military assets of the U.S. There have been at least 50 military helicopters damaged and there have been at least 3400 deaths from the coalition. The war has also resulted in deaths of at least 665000 Iraqi people. Though the deaths of military personnel are counted by the U.S. there is no exact information available about civilian deaths in Iraq.

There has been a decrease in number of attacks on the coalition troops ever since there was a major security operation carried out in Baghdad.

US citizens are weary of the war now and would like to know whether it will ever end, since there have been large number of casualties in this war. Though there is going to be a phasing of troop withdrawals the U.S. government has not stated the timetable since it believes that the enemy cannot be controlled and measured through a time table.

There are more combat units preparing to leave for Iraq, the president of U.S. agreed that the suicide bombing were a horrible truth and there was a general doubt in the minds of Iraqi people whether or not U.S. would find success in the war.

According to Bush the enemy is a dangerous one and he is therefore resolved to protect the American people from such enemy, he also called the enemy ‘pure evil’. The strategy used by the enemy to wait is dangerous for the troops operating there as well as for the security of the country, therefore there cannot be any withdrawal until the enemy is defeated.

There is a rift between the type of war funding to be provided where some of the Senate leaders are in favor of providing war funding only for three purposes, for targeted counterterrorism operations, training and providing equipment to Iraqi security forces and for protection of the U.S. security personnel and the infrastructure.

However, some are not in favor of this war funding saying that this would cause the troops to move away from cities like Baghdad and into the interiors where the local people will then get an upper hand again and would provide ethnic cleansing in these areas of the country.