Pentagon: Morale Among U.S. Troops in Iraq Improving

July 25, 2005 — -- The morale and mental health of soldiers deployed in Iraq and Kuwait is better than it was two years ago, but still remains low, according to a new study conducted by the Army.

The report found that among deployed units, 54 percent of troops classified their unit's morale as low to very low. That is up from 72 percent a year earlier, however.

The report, commissioned by the Operation Iraqi Freedom Mental Health Advisory Team, concluded that the mental health and well-being of soldiers has improved overall. The report followed up on a similar study in 2003.

U.S. forces in Iraq face considerable stress not just from the threat of insurgent attacks, but also from the uncertainty of not knowing when they will be able to return home, the study found. Forty-one percent of the soldiers surveyed said their redeployment date was their most stressful concern. The figure is down from 87 percent in the 2003 survey.

The report also noted an increase in combat-related stressors, including a higher rate of incoming rocket and mortar attacks and an escalation of improvised explosive device attacks.

Overall, the study found only 40 percent of soldiers who report mental health problems seek the help they need, and that 17 percent of soldiers said that they had experienced moderate or severe stress or problems with alcohol, emotions or their families. Two-thirds of the soldiers said they had received some type of training on how to handle deployment and/or combat related stress, but less than half of these soldiers reported that the stress training was adequate.

Some Experts Skeptical of Findings

Some experts, such as Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, believed the Army's report painted too gloomy of a picture of soldiers' mental health.

"My overall impression is that, as evidenced by troop retention statistics and anecdotal evidence and conversations with military personnel, morale among troops is pretty good -- but families are being severely strained," said O'Hanlon. "These numbers strike me as surprisingly bad, even the latest ones, and I have some doubts therefore about methodology."

Retired Army Maj. Gen. William Nash, an ABC News military consultant and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, warned that reports like these often compare different items.

"You don't know for sure if you're comparing apples to oranges," said Nash.

The report also found that mental health problems were more prevalent in National Guard and Reserve units, and that they also had lower perceptions of combat readiness and training than soldiers in other units.

"Anybody that works 39 days a year is not as good as someone who works 365 days a year," said Nash. "Reserve units, even with six months of intensive training are never going to feel as confident as a soldier who receives 365 days a year worth of training."

Reservists and National Guardsman make up roughly 40 percent of the 137,000 troops in Iraq.

The military, faced with significant difficulties in attracting new soldiers and after a well-publicized increase in the number of soldier suicides, has been working to ease the mental burden on its troops. The military has added more mental health workers in the field to combat this problem, yet according to the report, "stigma and organizational barriers to receiving care remain."

Reporters at a Pentagon news conference asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday afternoon about the numbers surrounding the released report.

"I've tried to get the Army to look at the length of the tours and I think at some point down the road they will," said Rumsfeld. "At the present time, the combination of attempting to reset their force from the deployments and reorganize down to the brigade level is sufficiently complex that they do not want to interrupt it by changing the length of time."

O'Hanlon believes that one reason why mental health among deployed troops is improving is because soldiers believe that they are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to their deployments.

"Many of them probably think that the next deployment might well be the last, at least for a long while," said O'Hanlon. "In other words, while the end isn't exactly in sight, there are at least more explicit guesses from the top leadership that we could start drawing down in a big way next year or shortly thereafter."

The report polled more than 2,000 soldiers deployed in Iraq and Kuwait during the fall of 2004. The soldiers were from operational units only, and did not include those serving at command levels.