Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 1, 1991                   TAG: 9103010222
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA                                LENGTH: Medium

CASUALTIES MAY BE LEAST EVER

The 79 Americans who died also fits that criterion for U.S. combat deaths in a major war, U.S. sources said. They noted further that fully a third of the total were killed in a single act by the Iraqis.

Twenty-eight American service members were killed Feb. 25 when an Iraqi Scud missile hit their barracks near the big allied air base at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Figures complied by U.S. Central Command showed 23 Americans were killed in the air war between Jan. 17 and Feb. 24, and 28 others died in the four days of ground fighting that ended Wednesday in Iraq's defeat.

Only four were killed in ground combat in the first two days, but the figure rose as the U.S. armored units charged through Kuwait and Iraq, clashing with some of the sturdier Iraqi units.

Official figures released by U.S. Central Command showed 79 killed, 213 wounded and 45 missing in Operation Desert Storm. All but six of the missing predated the ground war, primarily pilots shot down in raids over Kuwait and Iraq. At least eight of the MIAs are believed to be Iraqi prisoners.

U.S. officials estimated that the U.S.-led coalition had 443,000 troops in the combat zone compared with Iraq's 623,000 when the war began on Jan. 17. About 200,000 of the combat forces were American, they said.

The Pentagon said there were 19 deaths among 15,000 U.S. troops in the 1983 Grenada invasion, and 23 killed among 27,000 in Panama in December 1989.

Military sources cited many factors in the low casualty rate, including better protection for troops in the field and high-tech weaponry that allowed them to take on their adversary from a distance.

In Desert Storm, planning was heavily geared to limiting casualties - weeks of bombing that "degraded" Iraqi fighting capabilities and an attack that sped over or around defenses.

Allied forces released no estimate of Iraqis killed in combat. A spokesman for Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, said Saudi officers estimated 85,000 to 100,000 Iraqi killed and wounded.

Lt. Gen. Sir Peter de la Billiere, the commander of British Forces in Operation Desert Storm, told reporters that the overall losses by the coalition were "the smallest number for the size of the campaign in the history of warfare."

The British lost 15 killed, 32 wounded and 12 missing in the 41 days of war. Nine were killed on Tuesday when a U.S. Air Force A-10 "tank-buster" accidentally hit two British armored vehicles while flying close air support missions during a battle in southern Iraq.