The NYT and SW did their own compilations because the government doesn't provide such figures. To McCain, who scours Web sites such as non-combat-death.org looking for meager details, that's another reason to suspect the military is not being up-front in its probes and disclosures.
"The government would rather say they have a problem with suicide than admit they have a problem with homicides," she says. In some cases, McCain adds, deaths may have been avoided had warnings filtered through the military systems. "I've talked to families who knew their loved ones were going to be killed [by another soldier]. The soldier had informed them of the threat, and they made the military aware of it. But a few weeks later, the soldier was dead."
Joseph Laney
Russell complained of being treated dismissively by Army psychiatric staff.
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The Army says it had no real clue that Sgt. Russell was about to violently erupt. Officials figured Russell, like others suffering from wartime stress, was suicidal—but not necessarily homicidal.
"Combat deployments are inherently stressful," the Army's chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, said at a Pentagon press briefing following the Camp Liberty slaughter. "I can't believe that the stress of [Russell's] three combat deployments, added to personal and family situations and stresses, is not some type of a contributing factor."
After 15 years, Russell was opting out of the service, and doing so while having financial and family problems. (They are indicated but not detailed in the Army report; he may have been behind in mortgage payments on a Texas home, and he told an officer his wife in Germany had recently "grounded" him.) Investigators note that Russell had been moved from job to job because his commanders and co-workers "lacked faith in his competence." He is described as "extremely introverted, a loner, quiet, reserved, anti-social and not able to keep up with junior soldiers regarding computers and digital communications."
Though the Army expunged some findings and removed complete pages of copy from the Camp Liberty report before publicly releasing it Oct. 16—three weeks before the Fort Hood shootings—officials conceded numerous mistakes. Among the breakdowns: Clinic physical security was inadequate, MPs failed to alert those in danger, Army guidelines to deal with mentally ailing personnel were flawed, and procedures for implementing a proper suicide watch were not followed.
It's possible some of the same mistakes were made at Fort Hood, though the probe there is just beginning and being filtered through news reports and political interpretations. At the moment, Hasan is thought to be a radical, possibly insane Muslim who undertook a suicidal terrorist act. The FBI knew of his e-mails to Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida follower linked to three of the September 11 hijackers, but didn't inform the military. Facing deployment to Afghanistan for a war he reputedly opposed, Hasan was said to have shouted "God is great" in Arabic as he mowed down his 13 victims and wounded 29 others inside the fort's Soldier Readiness Center, where medical checkups are given to troops deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Pat Brown, an expert criminal profiler, told CNN he thought Hasan's deeper motivations were psychological. "He was simply a lone guy who had issues, problems, psychopathic behaviors that escalated to the point where he wanted to get back at society, and he took it out on his workmates like most of them do," said Brown. Hasan's attorney now says his client is likely to use an insanity defense to avoid the death penalty.
Like Russell, Hasan had gotten poor ratings for job performance, and though suicidal, neither man was necessarily hell-bent on killing himself. Just as the first stories about Fort Hood erroneously stated that Hasan was dead (he was shot by others several times and is now paralyzed from the chest down), the first bulletins about Camp Liberty stated that Russell took his own life. As FOX News reported: "A U.S. soldier gunned down four of his fellow troops and then killed himself at a stress clinic at the Camp Liberty military base in Baghdad." In fact, Russell ran out the clinic's back door and was subdued by MPs.
Bad as the carnage was that day, the report indicates Russell's body count could have approached the tragic toll Hasan left behind had the incident not occurred during the slow lunch hour at Camp Liberty, where those not trapped found ways out.
"I heard 'pop, pop, pop, pop,' multiple gun shots," recalled one unidentified doctor. "I hit the deck under the window and told my soldier [patient] to get down. I saw what I thought was wood coming at me, and holes in the wall. I think that rounds were coming through my wall and door. I kept telling my soldier to 'stay down, stay down, stay down.' I then crawled, combat-crawled, to the door because I wanted to lock it. I locked the door and noticed holes and thought 'This is not going to hold him.'"
Doctor and patient then bailed out a window and dashed to safety. "I am not sure how many shots I heard," the doctor added. Initially, he thought it was five to 10. "I now believe I heard many more than that, as I look back on the incident."
