Australia: Psych tests for elite cops back from Iraq

[Robbien]

POLICE from Queensland's highly trained Special Emergency Response Team who leave the service to work in security jobs in Iraq will be allowed to rejoin only after assessing the degree of "psychological disturbance" they may have suffered.

. . .

Mr Atkinson responded, saying the reason for the policy on retraining and doing general uniform duties was "that SERT has a philosophical environment where we use force as a last resort".

"That is the whole principle that it operates on, and so does the police department," he said. "In Iraq it would be entirely the opposite.

"We simply do not know what people who were there were exposed to; whether they are psychologically disturbed by the experience and whether their reactions and management of a critical incident would be very different after being in Iraq as to what it would be here and what we expect of them."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19783608-2702,00.html

[truthisfreedom]

1. very interesting. "in Iraq it would be exactly the opposite."

use violence first? no wonder there are so many murdered civilians.

[Vidar]

2. Probably a good idea.

[SoCalDem]

3. The sad part is that a lot of these guys will be deemed "unfit"

to return to their "peacetime" jobs.. what will THEY do then? Will Australia pay to treat and retrain them? Probably..

Here?? not so much:(

[Robbien]

4. Yes, it is worrisome that many of these paid mercs

are coming back to the US and merging back into society without any type of evaluation or psychological help.