Transcript: Gen. Casey, Steele vs Kaine
"This Week" Transcript with Chief of Staff of the Army General George Casey, RNC Chairman Michael Steele and DNC Chairman Tim Kaine.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So it's fair to say that right now, you can't rule out anything. We don't know if this was an act of premeditated political terror, or if this was a case of someone who just snapped.
CASEY: I think you are exactly right, and I don't think we should speculate on one or the other or any other possibilities.
STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the things this does raise, though, is the special challenge paused to all of you by Muslims in the military. There are only about 3,000 Muslims in the military right now, and on the one hand, you want to recruit Muslims. There is a great need for Muslims in the military right now. On the other hand, this is not the first case we've seen of fratricide by someone with a Muslim background in the military. How do you deal with this challenge?
CASEY: Again, I think that's something else we need to be very careful about, and I think the speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here. And it's not just about Muslims. We have a very diverse army. We have a very diverse society. And that gives us all strength. So again, we need to be very careful with that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You say it gives us strength. We also have more and more signs that the military right now is under great stress, and military families under great stress, with repeated deployments both to Iraq and Afghanistan. It was pretty clear that one of the things on Major Hasan's mind was the fear of being sent, as he would be, for the first time, to Afghanistan. But is this something we're going to -- and I know you are addressing it every single day -- but is this something that we're going to be paying more attention to? And what more can be done to prevent something like this in the future?
CASEY: I'd say two things to that. First of all, we in the Army will take a very hard look at ourselves and ask ourselves the hard questions, because we want to, as everyone else wants to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again.
The second thing you asked, can we do more to help the stresses and strains on the soldiers and families. And I can only say we will continue to do whatever it takes. And we've made great strides in the last several years in increasing what we're doing from -- the mental fitness of the force. In 2007, we had an Army-wide stigma reduction campaign, that actually we saw the benefits right away in the 40-percent increase in the number of soldiers who came forward and said they were suffering from post-traumatic stress. We have gone after the suicide problems they were having very hard. We've contracted with the National Institute for Health for a five-year, $50 million study of suicides. It's not only going to help the Army, it's going to help the country. And recently, we just implemented a program called comprehensive soldier fitness, which is designed to work on the front end of this, to give our soldiers, civilians and family members the resilient skills they need to make it through these tough times, and that's a $125 million program here that's going to unfold here over the next several years.
