EDITORIAL
Americans need truth in news from Iraq war

U.S. military officials refused to provide details about the deaths of 11 Marines in Iraq since Friday, except to say that all were killed in Anbar province.

The Marines have a policy of withholding details on casualties, on grounds that they might help the insurgents.

We're at a loss to guess how it would help the enemy to know whether the 11 Marines died in Fallujah or Ramadi, the two hotspots in Anbar. But we can imagine how that information might prove embarrassing to Marines if the deaths were sustained in Fallujah.

It was Marine commanders more than a month ago who declared Fallujah "liberated" and "secure" after a bloody and grueling month-long campaign that they said "broke the back of the insurgency."

The military has confirmed that F-18 fighter planes dropped 10 precision-guided bombs on targets in Fallujah on Sunday.

Relatives of Lance Cpl. Jeffery S. Blanton say he was one of eight Marines killed Sunday. The Kane'ohe-based Marine had previously been wounded in Fallujah and had said he was returning to that battle.

Civilians are still barred from returning to the heavily damaged city. Marines are reportedly shooting packs of possibly rabid dogs that roam the city, and raw sewage has flooded streets and buildings.

"We are still in the combat operations phase" in Fallujah, 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert, a Marine spokesman, acknowledged.

Gilbert said fighting was breaking out daily between Marines and small groups of insurgents.

Our point here is that over-optimistic or inflated reports from Iraq — much like President Bush's "mission accomplished" landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier way back on May 2, 2003 — do more harm than good in the long run.

The battle for Fallujah was possibly the toughest campaign of the war, except perhaps the first attempt to retake Fallujah, in April, which was abandoned.

Many brave Americans perished or were wounded in the struggle to liberate Fallujah. It does them no honor to suggest there has been anything easy about it — or that men like Blanton somehow died after the battle was won.

It's not true, of course, that the American public has no stomach for war once there's a sustained drumbeat of casualties. In fact, they will support a just war. The Vietnam experience shows they begin to break ranks when they perceive they have been misled.