Iraqi Resistance attacks at all time high. posted by Richard Seymour

Insurgent attacks in Iraq reached a postwar high in the four months preceding Jan. 20, according to a Iraq progress report issued Friday by the Pentagon.

More than 550 attacks took place in Iraq from Aug. 29, 2005, to Jan. 20, 2006, according to the latest “security and stability” report the Defense Department is required to send lawmakers every four months.

Speaking to Pentagon reporters Friday, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs said that the survey’s conclusions “were not good,” but that “loving us is not what it’s about.”

Awareness of the relative unpopularity of U.S. troops “is one of the reasons we want to turn over the battlespace” to the Iraqi security forces, Rodman said.

Only one period approaches the recent numbers: From June 29 to Nov. 26, 2004, which included the battle for Fallujah and major clashes with Shiite insurgents belonging to Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

There were about 520 attacks during that period, according to the report, which follows two earlier reports submitted by DOD in July and October 2005.

Almost 80 percent of all attacks in Iraq target coalition forces, the survey said, although three-fourths of the casualties are Iraqis.