Going through old clippings, I came across a story in the WashPo from May 2007, reporting the findings of the military's 4th mental health study, the first and, apparently, only one to ask questions about ethics. The study found that about 10% of the 1,767 soldiers and marines in Iraq who were surveyed reported having mistreated civilians there. The greatest portion of that abuse involved insults and swearing (a small portion confessed to physical abuse) and nearly 2/3 said they wouldn't report a violation by a battle buddy. Over a third condoned torture under certain circumstances -- like if it got important info or would save lives, which are pretty much the same hypotheticals civilians buy into, even though torture isn't usually that efficient or effective.
There were approximately 125,000 U.S. troops in Iraq in August & September 2006, when the survey was done. If the findings are representative, that would come to 12,500 soldiers who did stuff like kicking Iraqi civilians or damaging their possessions when it wasn't warranted -- or worse. (I don't believe, btw, that such a small proportion swore at Iraqis or used epithets against them. Do you?) The survey didn't seem to count if these were single or multiple incidents, but we can guess. And guess that, if 176 soldiers in the survey admitted to such actions, there were at least that many who didn't fess up.
Probably not coincidentally, over 40% of those surveyed and/or interviewed reported low morale in their units. The Pentagon completed the study in Nov. 2006, but didn't release it for about 5 months. They didn't say why.
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