4 in 10 troops in Iraq say torture justified to save a comrade's life

WASHINGTON — More than one-third of U.S. soldiers surveyed in Iraq said they think torture should be allowed if it helps gather important information about insurgents, the Pentagon disclosed Friday. Four in every 10 said they approve of such illegal abuse if it would save the life of a fellow soldier.

The Pentagon report, based on a mental-health survey of 1,320 soldiers and 447 Marines, also found that the prevalence of mental-health problems such as combat trauma, anxiety and depression increases with each deployment, with longer tours of duty, and with less time at home.

That result is particularly notable given that the Pentagon has sent soldiers and Marines to Iraq multiple times and recently extended tours of thousands of soldiers from 12 to 15 months.

"The Army is spread very thin, and we need it to be a larger force for the number of missions that we were being asked to address for our nation," said Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock, the acting Army surgeon general.

The survey, the fourth since the war started, is the first to include questions about battlefield ethics and the treatment of Iraqi civilians. It found that soldiers — whose tours last twice as long as those of Marines — have lower morale, more marital problems and higher rates of mental-health disorders.

The Army has struggled with deployment lengths throughout the Iraq war, ordering extensions and speeding deployments to sustain troop levels. Defense Secretary Robert Gates last month ordered the 90-day extensions for active-duty Army units in Iraq and Afghanistan. The extension will allow the current buildup to continue without forcing returning units to forgo rest and retraining periods.

But, experts said, the new findings raised concern about the possibility of more incidents such as the November 2005 massacre of civilians at Haditha or the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib as tours grow longer to accommodate the present buildup in forces.

"What it says to me is we should get out of Iraq before a real disaster happens for us," said Cindy Williams, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher who specializes in military-personnel policies. "Iraq is already in chaos, but for us to stay there and continue to wreck our Army over this is a big mistake."

Although the present military strategy emphasizes the need to make the Iraqi populace feel safe, fewer than half of the service members questioned said that all noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect.

About 10 percent of U.S. service members surveyed reported they had mistreated civilians in Iraq, such as kicking them or damaging their possessions needlessly.

The survey also showed that 44 percent of Marines and 41 percent of soldiers said harsh interrogation methods, including torture, should be allowed to save the life of a fellow service member. Army Field Manual rules prohibit physical contact during questioning.

"They looked under every rock, and what they found was not always easy to look at," S. Ward Casscells, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said of Army researchers who conducted the survey. The report noted that the troops' statements are at odds with the "soldier's rules" promulgated by the Army, which forbid the torture of enemy prisoners and state civilians must be treated humanely.

At a news conference to discuss the report, Pollock urged that the responses about the use of torture be viewed in the context of the war.

"These men and women have been seeing their friends injured, and I think that having that thought is normal," Pollock said. "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."

Pollock acknowledged that the longer tours would increase stress. But in the wake of the report, she said, the military was doing more to train leaders to support troops and reduce stress.

The report recommends that after a deployment, soldiers be given between 18 and 36 months at their home station before being sent overseas again. The demand for soldiers in Iraq, however, has meant that few combat units are allowed to remain home for more than a year.

Pollock acknowledged that, for now, there was no possibility the Army could give soldiers that much time at home.

The new report also contained some troubling data about suicides. The average suicide rate for the Army as a whole is 11.6 per year for every 100,000 soldiers, lower than that for male civilians in a comparable age group. For soldiers serving in Iraq, however, the rate is 16.1. Military officials said the report found that the suicide-prevention efforts being carried out in Iraq were not designed for a war zone.

The survey was taken between Aug. 28 and Oct. 3, 2006. Although the report was completed in November, months before the decision to extend Army tours, the Pentagon did not release it until Friday.