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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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May 5th,
2007 - Third of US Iraq Troops Back Torture |
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Third of US Iraq Troops Back
Torture Agence France Presse May 5, 2007 Washington - Well over a
third of US combat troops deployed in Iraq condone torture to obtain
information from an insurgent and nearly one in 10 acknowledge mistreating
civilians, said a survey released yesterday. The study by an army mental
health advisory team also found continuing problems with morale and said
acute mental health issues were more prevalent among troops with extended
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,
soldiers and Marines in combat units were questioned on issues of character
and ethics, and their answers suggested hardened attitudes toward civilians
among front line troops: - About 10% 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 behaviour; - 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 news 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. General George Casey, then
the commander of US forces in Iraq, asked the survey team to include
questions on ethics. It came at a time when the
US military was beset by a string of high profile cases involving civilian
killings by soldiers and Marines, and concerned that some commanders had done
little about it. 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 yesterday in
censored form after its findings began to leak to the press. On whether torture should be
allowed to save the life of a soldier or marine, 44% of the Marines surveyed
said it should, as did 41% of the soldiers. When asked if torture should
be allowed to gather important information about insurgents, 39% of marines
and 36% of soldiers surveyed said it should. Only 38% of marines and 47%
of soldiers surveyed agreed that “all non-combatants should be treated with
dignity and respect.” Among both soldiers and
Marines, 17% said “all non-combatants should be treated as insurgents.” Only about one in four
soldiers or Marines surveyed said they would put themselves at risk to help a
non-combatant in danger. In terms of battlefield
behavior, 7% of Marines and 4% of soldiers admitted to having physically hit
or kicked a non-combatant when it was not necessary. Twelve percent of Marines
and 9% of the soldiers said they had damaged or destroyed Iraqi property when
it was not necessary. Asked whether they would
report a member of their unit for injuring or killing a non-combatant, only
40% of the Marines surveyed said they would. Fifty-five percent of the
soldiers answered affirmatively to that question. Only about a third of the
Marines said they would report a member of their unit for mistreating a
non-combatant, not following orders, violating the rules of engagement, or
unnecessarily destroying private property. Fewer than half the soldiers
responded positively to those questions. 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. External link: http://tinyurl.com/yr3kgp |