The Associated Press May 05, 2007
Stress linked to battlefield misconduct
By Pauline Jelinek
WASHINGTON -- In a survey of U.S. troops in combat in Iraq, less than half of Marines and a little more than half of Army soldiers said they would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian.
More than 40 percent support the idea that torture should be allowed to save the life of a soldier or Marine, and 10 percent reported personally abusing Iraqi civilians, the Pentagon said Friday in what it called its first ethics study of troops at the war front. Units exposed to the most combat were chosen for the study, officials said.
The report also found that soldiers on repeat tours of duty were more likely to suffer from acute stress and that the mental health problems lead to battlefield misconduct.
"It is disappointing," said analyst John Pike of the think tank Globalsecurity.org. "But anybody who is surprised by it doesn't understand war. ... This is about combat stress."
"The Marine Corps takes this issue of battlefield ethics very seriously," said Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, a Marine Corps spokesman. "We are examining the study and its recommendations, and we'll find ways to improve our approach."
'Moral dilemma'
The military has seen a number of high-profile incidents of alleged abuse in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the killings of 24 civilians by Marines, the rape and killing of a 14-year-old girl and the slaying of her family, and the sexual humiliation of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.
"I don't want to, for a minute, second-guess the behavior of any person in the military -- look at the kind of moral dilemma you are putting people in," said Christopher Preble of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "There's a real tension between using too much force, which generally means using force to protect yourself, and using too little and, therefore, exposing yourself to greater risk."
Army tours of duty
The Pentagon report, based on a mental health survey of 1,320 soldiers and 447 Marines in Iraq, raises questions about the military's decision last month to extend Army tours by 90 days.
The Army in particular has struggled with deployment lengths throughout the Iraq war, ordering extensions and speeding deployments to sustain troop levels.
"The team found that soldiers with high levels of anger, who experienced high levels of combat or who screened positive for a mental health symptom, were nearly twice as likely to mistreat noncombatants as those who reported low levels of anger," said Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock, the acting Army surgeon general.
Pike contrasted Iraq's campaign to World War I, saying: "The trenches were pretty stressful, but a unit would only be up at the front for a few months and then get rotated to the rear. There's no rear in Iraq; you're subject to combat stress for your entire tour."
This report includes material from The Washington Post.
Online: The report, www.armymedicine.army.mil/news/mhat/mhat.html
Other survey findings
Sixty-two percent of soldiers and 66 percent of Marines said that they knew someone seriously injured or killed or that a member of their team had become a casualty.
Only 47 percent of the soldiers and 38 percent of Marines said noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect.
Thirty-nine percent of Marines and 36 percent of soldiers said torture should be allowed to gather important information.
Soldiers, whose tours last twice as long as Marines', have lower morale, more marital problems and higher rates of mental health disorders.
© Copyright 2007, The Associated Press
