Washington, March 5: Military analyst Donald Shepperd, a former US Air Force major general, said the death toll will only rise.

“It’s very dangerous. So far we haven’t had a lot of ground combat so we haven’t had a lot of casualties. Now we can expect more casualties today and tomorrow. And the longer we’re there, the more we’re going to get,” said Shepperd.

Illustrated best perhaps by General Tommy Franks, when he mistakenly referred to ongoing military operations in “Vietnam,” the United States has moved on from its “zero-casualty” policy of the late 1990s.—AFP