November 2, 2003: Chinook Helicopter Shot Down in Deadliest Attack on US Forces since Invasion Began

A Chinook helicopter similar to the one shot down near Fallujah. [Source: Associated Press]Iraqi insurgents shoot down a US Army Chinook helicopter near Fallujah, killing 16 US soldiers and wounding 21. (Initial reports put the figures at 13 dead and 20 wounded. Subsequent deaths of soldiers mortally wounded in the attack push the death toll to 16.) [CBS News, 11/3/2003; American Forces Press Service, 11/3/2003] The shootdown is the deadliest single attack on American forces since the invasion began. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls the incident a national tragedy for Americans. “Clearly it is a tragic day,” Rumsfeld says. “In a long hard war, we are going to have tragic days. But they are necessary. They are part of a war that is difficult and complicated.” The Chinook, transporting over 50 troops from Habbaniyah Air Base to the Baghdad airport, where they were to depart Iraq for leave time, is shot down by insurgents wielding a Soviet-made SA-7 surface-to-air missile (SAM). (US officials have long warned that hundreds of SAMs remain unaccounted for, and many are undoubtedly in the hands of insurgents.) Another Chinook, accompanying the downed craft, fires a flare to divert a second missile. Within minutes, US Black Hawk helicopters arrive in large numbers. The dead and wounded are rushed to a nearby hospital. At the same time, soldiers secure the site, in the process ordering journalists on the scene to turn over any film they may have shot of the crash and forcing them to leave. Villagers and nearby farmers celebrate the attack by waving pieces of the smoking wreckage. The attack caps an eight-day surge in violence that has left 27 US soldiers dead. Fallujah is a Sunni stronghold and the center of intense resistance to the US occupation. A slogan painted on a wall in the town reads, “Fallujah will always be a cemetery for the Americans.” [CBS News, 11/3/2003; CounterPunch, 11/3/2003]