BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The death toll among Iraqi civilians has grown steadily amid unremitting violence that now takes an average of 120 lives each day, the United Nations reported yesterday in its bleakest assessment of noncombatant casualties since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
The October toll of at least 3,709 civilian deaths was the highest so far, nearly 400 more than in September and 700 more than in August.
The continued slaughter of civilians and increasing poverty have sent more than 2 million people fleeing their homes, and most of them have left the country. Every month, nearly 100,000 Iraqis flee to neighboring Jordan and Syria, the United Nations found.
U.S. officials and Iraqis are approaching major decisions on Iraq's future. At the White House and the Pentagon, officials have been debating whether a short-term increase in troops might tamp down Iraq's increasingly bloody civil war. Critics of the Bush administration have been pushing for a plan to begin withdrawing U.S. troops.
As all parties search for solutions, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is headed for meetings in Tehran, Iran, this weekend that could bring together Iraqi, Iranian and Syrian representatives.
Vice President Dick Cheney plans to visit Saudi Arabia on Saturday, and President Bush plans to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki next week. Rather than risking a meeting in Iraq, the two will get together in the relative security of neighboring Jordan.
Sectarian killings and insurgent attacks have caused much of the current violence in Iraq, and a majority of the deaths have been in Baghdad, according to the bimonthly U.N. report on the violence.
Baghdad effort fails
This summer, thousands of U.S. troops fanned out across the capital in a much-publicized but unsuccessful effort to restore calm.
Iraqi security forces kill those they are meant to protect, gunmen prey upon the weakest, and the judicial system is in disarray, the U.N. report says.
The estimated average of 120 violent civilian deaths a day would add up to about 44,000 a year. The United Nations based the civilian death toll on figures from the Baghdad morgue and the Iraqi Health Ministry.
Yesterday, at least 65 Iraqis were reported killed in assassinations and bombings, authorities said. This month, 49 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, down from the near-record level in October.
