Word: iraq
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...more agile Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected All-Terrain Vehicles (M-ATVs) on Afghan soil can help reduce the casualty count. Yet, as the Taliban develops increasingly deadly weapons - with Iran's help, according to U.S. intelligence - the U.S. is changing over to vehicles lighter than those it used in Iraq...
...Unlike Iraq, with its broad and flat highways, Afghanistan has relatively few roads, many of which pass through narrow mountain passes and over relatively weak bridges. "It can be pretty tough to maneuver," Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told troops in South Korea last week. "I've talked to troops that have gotten stuck in places that they didn't expect to get stuck in." (See a video of the soldier's experience in Afghanistan and Iraq...
...Americans who died in Afghanistan on Monday were a reminder that U.S. troops who die in Afghanistan are twice as likely to be killed in helicopter crashes as are their counterparts in Iraq. And the reasons for that discrepancy are not to be found in the country's skies, but on the ground - the Taliban's growing footprint has forced the U.S. to be far more reliant on moving troops and supplies by air. And the rugged terrain often makes helicopters the only option, even as the altitudes involved greatly increase the risks...
...Helicopters are not shot down in battle very much in either place [Iraq or Afghanistan]," says Brookings Institution defense analyst Michael O'Hanlon. He and his colleagues are keeping running tallies of U.S. fatalities in both theaters. While 5% of U.S. deaths in Iraq have been caused by helicopter crashes - 216 out of 4,348 - the total is 12% in Afghanistan - 101 of 866 - even before Monday's losses. "The main issues [responsible for the higher rate of helicopter-crash casualties in Afghanistan] have to do with terrain, weather and of course frequency of use," O'Hanlon says. (See pictures...
...flying in Afghanistan after returning from a four-month deployment there in 2007. His medevac unit, from Georgia's Moody Air Force Base, had lost three helicopters and seven crew members in the two wars. Enemy fire had been a factor in none of the Afghan crashes. "In Iraq, helicopter pilots face a greater prospect of being shot at by ground fire," Miller wrote. "In Afghanistan, the greatest threat is the terrain." He described flying in Afghanistan as "'graduate level' piloting more challenging than cruising over the flatlands of Iraq. "It didn't take long to feel the perils...