WASHINGTON, Sept 8 (AFP) - The US death toll in Iraq, having pushed past the symbolic 1,000 mark, has overtaken the situation in the country and was splashed Wednesday on front pages of papers across the United States with the US presidential race nearing its home stretch.
News of the symbolic toll sent shockwaves through the campaigns and media, but it was clear that the Democratic camp had the most to gain from focusing public attention on the mounting losses with violence deepening in Iraq, experts said.
A Pentagon official said the death toll in Iraq was at least 1,001, including three US civilian officials. He said officials were still trying to confirm two additional reported deaths. Another US soldier killed early Wednesday in a roadside bomb attack north of Baghdad would put the tally at 1,002.
"The number doesn't matter," said Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institute here.
"What does matter is that everyone is writing and talking about it. Iraq was somewhat forgotten this summer; now it's back on the front pages," he told AFP.
"Right after the Republican convention, where Bush and his people tried to create an atmosphere that everything was going great, it's a pretty graphic and symbolic reminder that things are not going great," said Bruce Jentleson, director of the Terry Stanford public policy institute at Duke University.
"The timing of it contributes to its impact. If it had come a week before the convention it might have been drowned out by the convention."
John Mueller, a political science professor at Ohio State University, also said the Iraq issue was becoming increasingly hot.
"People had been sort of tuning Iraq out a fair amount in the last month or two with the conventions, the Olympics I suppose and just sort of an exhaustion," he said.
"There has been something of a wearing effect of the casualties" he added, but the 1,000-death mark "has forced people to noticeably pay a little more attention."
Still, according to Jentleson, if the Iraq issue "hasn't been center stage ... it hasn't gone away totally. All the polls show that Iraq are pretty high up on the list of what voters think about and they have been pretty much all year."
Events on the ground, and whether Kerry can keep voters focused on Iraq will determine whether the issue's effect on the campaign is a lasting one, he said.
"There was a decline of American casualties, the only ones that matter to (US) public opinion, but now (they are up with) a spike in violence," said Mueller.
"If fewer Americans get killed, I think attention will again wane. The sense that there is a mess there is not going away, that's just a fact."