AP: 119 Iraqi Policemen Are Killed In October (UN says monthly Iraqi toll is 3,000)

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119 Iraqi Policemen Are Killed in Oct.

By SAMEER N. YACOUB
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- At least 119 Iraqi policemen were killed in shootings, abductions and bomb attacks last month, the Interior Ministry said Thursday, underscoring the toll Iraq's relentless violence is inflicting on the poorly trained and underequipped force.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on a trip to France that it would take his country two or three years to set up its own security forces and send U.S.-led troops home.

The U.S. military said, meanwhile, that it had killed a mid-ranking member of al-Qaida in Iraq and his driver in an air strike in Ramadi. And Iraqi police said gunmen killed the Shiite dean of Baghdad University's school of administration and economics along with his wife and son on Thursday, four days after the murder of a prominent Sunni academic.

"Two to three years are needed to build our security forces and say goodbye to our friends," Talabani said at a conference in Paris during a six-day visit that was to include talks with President Jacques Chirac later Thursday.

An Iraqi Interior Ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk to the media, said 185 police were reported injured in October - pointing to an extremely low survival rate among members of the force, who lack the armored vehicles, body armor, and fortified bases of the U.S. troops in the country. In contrast, there is a much higher proportion of injured to slain American soldiers, with 33,838 wounded and 2,817 killed since the war began.

The Iraqi police death toll for October follows an announcement by the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, that more than 300 Iraqi police and soldiers died during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began at the end of September and ended early last week.

Altogether, more than 1,000 Iraqis died from violence in October, the highest level since The Associated Press began tracking civilian deaths in April 2005. That count most likely underestimates the true figure because many deaths go unreported. The United Nations puts the monthly death toll at more than 3,000.

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