PFPC Daily - June 2, 2005

Analysis: Iraq casualties and causality

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, May 31, 2005

By Dan Olmsted

Washington, DC, May. 31 (UPI) -- Over the Memorial Day weekend the
newspapers and TV networks ran touching, often troubling stories
about soldiers who died in Iraq and how their families have tried to
cope.

There was one topic they did not touch, however: whether an
anti-malaria drug associated with suicide and mental problems might
have triggered a startling number of those deaths, and whether those
families have gotten the answers they deserve.

Here are three worth pondering from the weekend's Washington Post:

--Army Master Sgt. James C. Coons, 35, who committed suicide July 4,
2003, at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington after being
evacuated from Iraq with psychiatric problems. He clearly was
psychotic and hallucinated the face of a dead soldier in the mirror.

--Marine Pfc. Ryan R. Cox, 19, who was shot dead in Iraq June 15,
2003, by a fellow Marine during a minor argument. The Marine said he
did not think the gun was loaded; he is serving three years in
military prison.

--Army Specialist Dustin R. McGaugh, 20, who committed suicide in
Iraq Sept. 30, 2003.

The last two soldiers were from Derby, Kan., as was another Marine
who was killed by an enemy sniper. That makes Derby the hardest-hit
small community in the United States. It also means two of the deaths
that have devastated Derby came from non-combat gunshot wounds in
2003. That is the period when Lariam -- which has been associated
with reports of suicide, aggression and psychosis -- was being
prescribed to thousands of soldiers in Iraq.

After repeated inquiries by United Press International last year, the
Army confirmed that as many as 11 of 24 suicides in 2003 were in
units where Lariam could have been prescribed. (The Army originally
told Congress there were only four such suicides.)

Coons's death at Walter Reed has just been listed as an Iraq
casualty, so the number of suicides in Iraq and Kuwait for 2003 now
stands at 25.

The next year, 2004, the military largely quit using Lariam in Iraq,
and the number of suicides fell by more than half, to 12.

So far this year, there have been just three confirmed suicides, with
two investigations still pending. That is an annualized rate of 7.4
per 100,000 -- almost two-thirds less than the 2003 suicide rate of
18.8.

Where do the three deaths highlighted here fit in?

"Dusty" McGaugh served in a field artillery unit in Fort Sill, Okla.
UPI's investigation results suggest Fort Sill field artillery units
were taking Lariam, based on information from a ranking officer who
himself had been evacuated from Iraq for psychiatric problems he
attributed to the drug.

There was another suicide in a Fort Sill field artillery unit -- Spc.
Joseph D. Suell, who died of an overdose of pills June 16, 2003, in
Iraq.

It is uncertain what percentage of Pfc. Cox's 1st Marines were taking
Lariam, although some were -- and there were strange things going on
in that division in 2003.

Cox was with the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine
Division.

So was Marine Lance Cpl. Cory Ryan Geurin, who died exactly one month
later -- July 15, 2003 -- when he fell off a palace roof where he was
standing post in Babylon, Iraq.

Navy Hospitalman Joshua McIntosh was assigned to the 7th Regiment's
3rd Battalion. He died of a non-combat gunshot wound June 26, 2003.

Another Marine from the 1st Division, Pfc. James R. Dillon Jr., shot
himself to death March 13, 2003, a week before the war began. He was
with the 1st Marine's 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.

So was Marine Pfc. Christian Daniel Gurtner. The Pentagon said his
death April 2, 2003, was due to "an accidental discharge of a
personal weapon, unclear whether his own or someone else's."

By the summer of 2003, there were so many suicides among troops in
Iraq that the Pentagon dispatched a team from the Army Surgeon
General's office to investigate and suggest solutions.

In all, UPI counted 20 non-combat deaths that involved suicide or
fratricide or non-vehicle accidents out of 113 total Iraq casualties
in the three summer months of 2003. Gun discharges. Self-inflicted
wounds. Drownings. Falls from buildings.

Tuesday, The Washington Post ran a photo gallery of the 98 U.S.
soldiers killed in Iraq between March 28 and May 19 of this year. Of
those, seven died of non-hostile causes. Three of the deaths were
from natural causes. Two resulted from a fire in a guard tower. That
leaves just two that conceivably could be the kind of suicides,
homicides or strange accidents that took the lives of 20 U.S. troops
in Iraq in the summer of 2003.

Which leaves one wondering why media outlets who write about those
deaths consider every possible angle but a small round pill.

SOURCE:
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20050530-093250-6376r.htm