|
One in Ten US Occupation
Troops Admit Mistreating Civilians
By AFP
WASHINGTON (AFP)
- A survey of US combat troops deployed in Iraq has found
that one in 10 said they mistreated civilians and more than a
third condoned torture to save the life of a comrade, a report
said Friday.
The study by an army mental health advisory team found
continuing problems with morale and that acute mental health
issues were more prevalent among troops with lengthening tours
or on their second and third deployment to Iraq.
"They looked under every rock, and what they found was not
always easy to look at," said Ward Casscells, the Pentagon's
health affairs chief.
For the first time ever, a sampling of soldiers and marines in
combat units were questioned on issues of character, and their
answers suggested hardened attitudes toward civilians among
front line troops:
-- About 10 percent of soldiers surveyed reported mistreating
non-combatants or damaging their property when it was not
necessary;
-- Less than half of the soldiers and marines would report a
team member for unethical behavior;
-- More than a third of all soldiers and marines reported that
torture should be allowed to save the life of a fellow soldier
or marine.
Major General Gale Pollock, the army's acting surgeon general,
sought to make a distinction between soldiers' thoughts about
torture and their actions.
"These men and women have been seeing their friends injured and
I think that having that thought is normal," she said at a
Pentagon press conference.
"But what it speaks to is the leadership that the military is
providing, because they're not acting on those thoughts. They're
not torturing the people," she said.
The team surveyed 1,320 soldiers and 447 marines between August
and October 2006 in Iraq. Although the report was completed in
November, it was only released Friday in censored form after its
findings began to leak to the press.
The study found that morale among soldiers was worse than among
marines, which it said was explained in part by the marines'
shorter six month tours.
The team recommended that the army's yearlong tours in Iraq
either be shortened, or that soldiers be given 18 to 36 months
between deployment to recover.
Instead, the army is moving in the opposite direction, extending
tours to 15 months to keep pace with a surge in forces. The army
is struggling to allow units a year at home between deployments.
Click here
to comment on this and other articles
Send Page To a Friend
In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
|
