Soldier accused of murder had ‘homicidal ideations’
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. – An Army private charged with the slaughter of an Iraqi family was diagnosed as a homicidal threat by a military mental health team three months before the attack.
Pfc. Steven D. Green was found to have “homicidal ideations” after seeking help from an Army Combat Stress Team in Iraq on Dec. 21, 2005. Green said he was angry about the war, desperate to avenge the death of comrades and driven to kill Iraqi citizens, according to an investigation by the Associated Press.
The treatment was several small doses of Seroquel – a drug to regulate his mood – and a directive to get some sleep, according to medical records obtained by the Associated Press. The next day, he returned to duty in a violent stretch of desert in the southern Baghdad suburbs known as the “Triangle of Death.”
On March 12, Iraqi police reported a break-in at the home of a family in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles from Baghdad. The intruders shot and killed the father, mother and two young daughters. The older girl, 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, was raped and her body set afire.
The carnage first was assumed to be the work of insurgents. That changed in late June when two members of Green’s unit told their superiors of suspicions that soldiers were involved in the killings. Now the Army believes Green and four other soldiers are responsible. One of them has confessed and provided information to prosecutors; in testimony at his court-martial, the soldier identified Green as the ringleader.
If the charges are true, the attack would be among the most horrific instances of criminal behavior by American troops in the nearly four-year-old war. It also would represent a worst-case scenario for the military’s much-criticized practice of keeping mentally and emotionally unfit personnel in Iraq.
Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, psychiatry counsel to the Army Surgeon General, would not specifically discuss Green. She defended military policies regarding the treatment of emotionally or psychologically distressed soldiers.
“If unresponsive to treatment and/or a persistent danger to self or others, they will be evacuated,” Ritchie said in an e-mail.
The 101st Airborne Division also declined to comment, noting it is an open federal case.
The Army and the Marines, which have the most personnel on the ground in Iraq, have been faulted for the manner in which troops with mental and emotional difficulties are being treated.
Sending troops already in Iraq who have been diagnosed with mental illness back to combat duty – often under medication that has not been prescribed long enough to have provided relief – has been a particular criticism.
Green has been charged with the murders and rape and pleaded not guilty in federal court in Kentucky. He is being tried in federal court because his arrest came after he had been discharged. Three others face the same charges and will be court-martialed.
From interviews with people who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized by the military to discuss the case, and from viewing the Army’s medical and investigative records, the Associated Press has also learned:
“Three months passed without Army doctors and clinicians from the Combat Stress Team having any contact with Green. He was summoned for a second examination on March 20 – eight days after the killing of the family. Green was diagnosed as having an antisocial personality disorder and declared unfit for service. The process of discharging him began a week later, and he was sent home.
“Lt. Col. Elizabeth Bowler, a psychiatrist and Army reservist from California who took over the Combat Stress Team with Green’s unit in January, recommended his discharge after the second examination in March. Yet she wrote a final evaluation that said Green exhibited no traits that would indicate dangerously erratic or homicidal moods.