As many as 360,000 GIs may have suffered brain injury, army says

WASHINGTON - The number of U.S. troops who have suffered wartime brain injuries since 2001 may be as high as 360,000 and could cast more attention on such injuries among civilians, Defense Department doctors said yesterday.

The estimate of the number injured - the vast majority of them suffering concussions - represents 20 percent of the roughly 1.8 million men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, where blast injuries are common from roadside bombs and other explosives, the doctors said.

The estimate came in a Pentagon news conference on activities planned this month to bring attention to brain injuries.

The doctors said the number could be as low as 180,000, based on estimates that between 10 percent and 20 percent of troops might have received such injuries.

The previous high estimate offered publicly was 320,000 in a study released a year ago by the private Rand Corp. It was based on about 1.6 million who had done tours of duty in the wars from late 2001.

Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton said that, as in previous wars, the research and other work being done by the military will eventually benefit the civilian world. Whether the injuries occur while people ride bicycles, play football, skateboard or ski, "we know that this is an issue across the country," she said.

In Iraq yesterday, a suicide bomber stalked members of a police intelligence unit, waiting for their night shifts to end, then attacked them outside a Baghdad restaurant, killing three.

The blast was one of a spate of attacks around Iraq - including a suicide car bombing at a police checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul and the ambush-slaying of a Sunni sheik and his family north of Baghdad.

And in Afghanistan yesterday, a car bomb exploded outside the main U.S. base at Bagram, underscoring the shaky security situation the country faces as a resurgent Taliban militia increases its attacks.

The car bomb wounded three civilian contractors working for a U.S. company, but it wasn't immediately clear what nationalities the three were, said Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, a U.S. spokeswoman.

The attack occurred near a parking area where truck drivers bringing in supplies gather. The driver of the car bomb abandoned the vehicle before it detonated, but the attacker was also carrying explosives which detonated, killing him, the U.S. military said.

In the south, a Canadian general said a roadside bomb blast in Kandahar province late Tuesday killed three Canadian soldiers. *