US to increase Iraq tours despite trauma warnings

The Pentagon is making plans to extend combat tours to Iraq despite a study showing troops who have undertaken at least one war zone deployment are experiencing serious psychological problems. The newly-published official report says hundreds of thousands of the more than one million US troops serving in Iraq or Afghanistan are facing severe mental health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety. Peter Geren, the acting army secretary, told Congress this week that extended tours of front-line duty could be ordered if President Bush decides to extend the 30,000-strong troop surge in Iraq beyond this September. General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, indicated at the weekend that the surge was unlikely to achieve its objectives before next year. "We're committed to filling the requirements that the combatant commander asks," Geren told the Senate armed services committee. "We have been able to do so up until now and we will continue to do so." He added that while no decisions had been made about extending combat tours, "we have to begin to plan, we have to look at our options." Geren's comments came days after the Pentagon's mental health task force reported that US troops were undertaking higher levels of sustained combat duty than during Vietnam and the Second World War; and the strain was telling. The task force found that 38 percent of soldiers, 31 percent of marines, 49 percent of national guard members and 43 percent of marine reservists exhibited symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety or other psychological problems within three months of returning from active duty. Symptoms of PTSD and traumatic brain injury -- the two so-called "signature injuries" associated with service in Iraq and Afghanistan -- included nightmares, insomnia, anger and alcohol and substance abuse, it said. The report also pointed to inadequate mental healthcare provision and facilities, lack of trained staff and entrenched prejudice about mental health problems. "Stigma in the military remains pervasive and often prevents service members from seeking needed care," the report said. Soldiers' reluctance to admit to illness meant that the overall problem was probably even bigger than current research indicated, it suggested. It also questioned the practice of returning soldiers to front-line duty while they were taking medication, such as lithium and Prozac. The US currently has about 155,000 troops in Iraq. Most typically spend 15 months in combat zones with a guaranteed 12 months at home -- a breach of the Pentagon's own rules that say equal time should be spent on and off duty. Despite the deployment of national guard and other reservists, many soldiers are on a third tour in a war that has lasted longer than the 1941-45 conflict with the Axis powers. Vice-Admiral Donald Arthur, cochairman of the Pentagon task force, said today there was "no doubt" that more numerous and lengthier deployments were exacerbating mental health problems. "Not since Vietnam have we seen this level of combat," he said. But the "horror of combat" and the stress it caused were difficult to convey to people who had not experienced it. "We have to find ways to measure the resilience of people we send into combat. We have lots of ways of measuring physical resilience, such as how fast you can run, but not how hardened they are mentally," Arthur said. Other task force recommendations included increased resources for mental health treatment, expanded recruitment of qualified health workers, and paying more attention to the families, particularly the children, of those soldiers affected. An army study, based on research conducted in Iraq last year, has also urged a reduction in combat duties to reduce psychological stress. It said troops should receive a month break for every three months spent in a combat zone. But that proposal was rejected out of hand this week by a senior aide to Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, the Iraq ground forces commander. "We would never get the job done," Brigadier General Joseph Anderson told USA Today. Heightened concerns over soldiers' mental health follows close on a scandal over inadequate treatment of wounded soldiers returning to the US. The army secretary, Francis Harvey, the army surgeon general, and the commander of the Walter Reed military hospital all lost their jobs in the wake of the row earlier this year.