[Watser?]

U.S. soldiers have killed or wounded 429 Iraqi civilians at checkpoints or near patrols and convoys during the past year, according to military statistics compiled in Iraq and obtained by McClatchy Newspapers.

The statistics are the first official accounting of civilian shootings since the war began, and while they seem small compared with the thousands who've died in Iraq's violence, they show the difficulty that the U.S. has in fulfilling its vow to protect civilians.

The numbers cover what the military calls escalation-of-force incidents, in which American troops fire at civilians who've come too close or have approached checkpoints too quickly. In the months since U.S. commanders have dispatched more troops to the field — ostensibly to secure Iraqi communities — the number of Iraqis killed and injured in such incidents has spiked, the statistics show.

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In a June 2006 interview with McClatchy, Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who was then the No. 2 commander in Iraq, said: "We have people who were on the fence or supported us who in the last two years or three years have in fact decided to strike out against us. And you have to ask: Why is that? And I would argue in many instances we are our own worst enemy."

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Iraqi civilians have complained that makeshift checkpoints, coupled with unpredictable patrols and convoys, make it difficult to know when troops are in their communities and how they should interact with them. And they say their immediate reaction to any gunshot — warning shot or not — is to flee, not stop.

A Government Accountability Office report in May found that the military has disbursed nearly $31 million in condolence payments to families in Iraq and Afghanistan for deaths, injuries or property damage. The maximum payment is $2,500 per person or injury, indicating that the payouts covered at least 12,400 incidents.

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