Army finds morale woes among US soldiers in Iraq

WASHINGTON, Thursday (Reuters) More than half of U.S. soldiers in the Iraq war reported morale problems in their units, with particular concern over long deployments, but suicide rates have dropped, an Army report said on Wednesday.

Fifty-four percent of soldiers questioned as part of an Army survey stated that morale in their individual units was either low or very low, the report said.

Nine percent reported high or very high unit morale.

The report, completed in January but only now being released, provided a snapshot of the morale and mental health of soldiers serving in Iraq and Kuwait from August to October last year. While morale remained a problem, the Army said it had improved over the previous year, when a similar survey in fall 2003 found 72 percent of soldiers reporting low or very low unit morale at a time when the Iraq insurgency was first gaining traction. Thirty-six percent of soldiers stated their personal morale was low, down from 52 percent reported a year earlier.

The leading source of stress for the soldiers, aside from actual combat, was the long deployment in Iraq, the report said.

Army personnel generally serve a full year on the ground in Iraq, and many have had their duty extended for additional weeks or months shortly before their scheduled return home.

Fifty-two percent of soldiers reported high or very high concern and another 16 percent reported moderate concern about the long deployments, the report stated.

Army officials said last year they were considering shortening the yearlong combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan amid concerns that the long and perilous duty was making it harder to attract new soldiers and keep current ones.

"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," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a briefing.

"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 (deployment) time."