Baghdad, Iraq ? Three more U.S. troops died in fighting this week, the military said Friday, raising to 54 the number of Americans killed in Iraq in December – nearly half of them in Anbar province.

The month is shaping up to be one of the deadliest for Americans since the war started, especially for those trying to tame the Sunni-led insurgency in the volatile province west of Baghdad.

At least 25 of the U.S. troops killed this month – most Marines – died in the vast stretch of desert that extends from the capital to the borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Three U.S. aircraft also went down in a span of two weeks, starting with the crash of a fighter jet Nov. 27.

The large number of casualties reflects the strength of Sunni insurgents, including al-Qaida in Iraq, in the region, even as violence in Baghdad shifts to a fight between Sunni and Shiite extremists.

It also comes despite a decision by some U.S. commanders in the area to pull troops out of combat missions and partner them with Iraqi army units as advisers and mentors.

With President Bush weighing strategy changes in the war, the U.S. Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, said Thursday that Gen. George Casey, the top commander in Iraq, is considering shifting many troops from combat missions to training Iraqi units, among other options.

Two Marines died Thursday in fighting in Anbar province, the military said. In Ninevah province to the northwest, a soldier assigned to the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, was killed Tuesday, the military said.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, issued his first public comment on a bipartisan U.S. report that said American policies in Iraq were failing and urged drastic changes.

In this image released by the U.S. Marine Corps, Marines with Bravo Company, 9th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, perform a 21-shot rifle salute in honor of Marine Cpl. Aaron L. Seal, of Elkhart, Ind., during a memorial ceremony Tuesday at the chapel at Camp al Taqaddum in Iraq's Anbar province. Seal, 23, was killed Oct. 1 in Baghdad.

“The report should have read the events more accurately and turned them into a good base for a solution. Instead, it contained contradictions in vision and recommendations,” al-Maliki said in an interview on the pan-Arab satellite station Al-Arabiya.

He said the 96-page report contained “good elements” regarding the political process and Iraq’s unity, but it also included “insults and negative directions” in regard to the Iraq conflict. He did not elaborate.

The prime minister’s comments were the latest in a flurry of criticism by Iraqi leaders, who have said the recommendations in the Iraq Study Group report did not acknowledge realities in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq and infringed on the country’s sovereignty.

The nonbinding report recommended direct engagement with Iran and Syria, approval of a law that could reinstate thousands of former officials of Saddam’s Baath Party to their jobs and a pullback of most American combat brigades by early 2008.

Al-Maliki also said he planned a Cabinet reshuffle but cautioned that he would carefully scrutinize candidates for ministerial posts and warned that he won’t accept candidates nominated by his coalition partners if he found them to be unqualified.

“I am not obliged to accept anyone and I will choose ministers myself if I have to,” he said.

Meanwhile, two suicide car bombs exploded Friday at U.S. checkpoints in the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi and American soldiers opened fire to foil one of the attacks, an Iraqi police lieutenant said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was concerned for his safety. He said four Iraqi civilians were killed.

The U.S. military said it had no reports of suicide car bombings in Ramadi.