By Bernard Unti
During the Civil War, it was Sallie, Jack, Grace, Old Harvey, York, and Major. During World War I, it was Blanco, Joffre, Queenie, Smoke, Stubby, and Verdun Belle. Today, in the distant war zones of Iraq, it’s Bashur, Lava, and Ratchet. They are the dogs of war, pets and mascots of American soldiers who have rescued and cared for animals trapped in the chaos and tumult of human conflict.
Already, however, the biographies of Bashur, Lava, and Ratchet read differently from those of their storied predecessors. That’s because the pets and mascots of Baghdad and Fallujah are fugitives—escapees from a military order that requires the killing of animals harbored by American soldiers in combat zones. The goodhearted service members are no less culpable in the eyes of military brass; those who breach the policy on pets face the threat of serious punishment, including reduction in rank and court-martial.
The Order: Shoot and Kill
General Order 1-A (GO-1A), a set of regulations promulgated by the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) in late 2000, seems a strange place for a prohibition on the keeping of animals. The regulations prohibit conduct “prejudicial to the maintenance of good order and discipline of all forces.” But Americans, be they in Baghdad, Beaufort, Billings, or Boston, all know the same truth. The bond between humans and animals does not compromise character or morale. It enhances them.
The other provisions of GO-1A make some sense from the perspective of morale and discipline. It forbids alcohol in nations where its use is frowned upon; bars soldiers from entering sites of religious significance except under special order; bans drug use, pornography, and gambling; bars religious proselytizing; and criminalizes the theft or destruction of archaeological artifacts or national treasures and the taking of souvenirs.
Taking stock, it doesn’t seem likely that history will look kindly upon those denizens of the Pentagon who thought to include pet keeping on this list of offenses. Certainly, the policy didn’t sit well with soldiers who came up against it.
During the first quarter of 2005, The HSUS heard from many service members in Iraq, seeking intervention in the fate of rescued animals, mostly dogs, in danger of being confiscated and killed by military authorities. Soldiers confirmed that the U.S. government had hired contractors to kill dogs found on American bases in Iraq. Some military units were also ordered to shoot animals on sight.
On March 29, HSUS CEO and President Wayne Pacelle sent a letter to Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, asking him to rescind GO-1A’s prohibition on the keeping of animals. Wrote Pacelle: “In our view, it is the policy of confiscating and destroying unit mascots and rescued animals who have become pets, via euthanasia or gunshot, that may undermine the spirit of our fighting men and women.”
Pacelle’s letter challenged Secretary Rumsfeld to authorize the shipment home of healthy, vaccinated, sterilized, and veterinary-certified animals (one per soldier, one time only) on a bi-weekly or a monthly basis from the war zone. He also pledged The HSUS’s assistance with the operation of a veterinary depot at one stateside location, where animals could be picked up by designated family members and friends of military personnel. Finally, Pacelle offered the help of The HSUS’s international division, Humane Society International, with the planning and execution of strategies for humane animal care and control institutions in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the other combat zone where GO-1A is being rigorously enforced.
Rumsfeld sent no reply. But such a solution is well within the capacity of the U.S. military, which already permits the shipment of working animals on Department of Defense (DoD) aircraft. Because the DoD relies heavily on bomb, mine, and sentry dogs, there are numerous veterinarians and caretakers present in the Iraq theater, fully equipped to provide suitable care, treatment, and pre-shipment examinations.
The Public Health Rationale
Although the destruction of animals is being carried out under GO-1A, public health concerns are the true rationale. “The medical officers don’t want us touching or associating with the strays, because of the potential spread of disease,” one service member reported to The HSUS. The soldier’s assessment was validated by a widely circulated December 2004 Agence France-Press account of marines chasing down stray animals that they believed were battening on corpses in Fallujah, with orders to shoot-to-kill.
In February 2005, the Air Force blamed a stray dog taken in by a group of civilian contractors, presumably in Iraq, for an episode that saw 56 individuals treated for potential exposure to rabies. Sometime after the contractors took him in, the dog developed rabies, biting a few people during a four-day period. The dog died shortly after quarantine, and tested positive for rabies. Military officials made a very public fuss about the costs of post-exposure prophylaxis in this case, linking it directly to the necessity of enforcing GO-1A.
Historically, rabies has not been a major public health issue in Iraq. Between 1989 and 2000, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were just 27 positive cases of rabies in dogs and just one case in another domestic animal. One military deployment web site indicates that there were 31 reported cases in Iraq in 1996, and an unverifiable news account from late 2004 suggested that there had been as many as 61 cases in Al Anbar province before the American invasion of Iraq.
However many cases there were, the DoD should have directed the money spent on contractors for killing dogs and cats toward the purchase, shipment and distribution of rabies vaccine—a much more promising prophylactic against any risk that animals may pose to Americans and Iraqis alike.
Unfortunately, both animals and our military personnel are victims of the DoD’s failure to make a realistic assessment of the threat posed by rabies and the proper public health response. The mass killing of dogs is common in many parts of the world, but emerging evidence suggests that only intensive vaccination campaigns can successfully curtail or eradicate the outbreak and incidence of rabies.
In a November 2004 medical journal article, five international public health specialists argued that “massive culling of the dog population, without an intensive vaccination campaign of the survivors, will not arrest an outbreak.” Even the DoD Deployment Health Clinical Center’s own fact sheet specifies vaccination of urban dog and cat populations as the standard approach.
That USCENTCOM has apparently ignored this common-sense solution hints at a certain lack of imagination and initiative, in addition to the lack of will and kind spirit at the top of the command structure.
It’s not too late for the DoD to start anew, however. What the Pentagon should do is get a protocol together, involving pre-exposure prophylaxis for those who routinely handle animals as well as recommended procedures for those trying to restrain or collect them as part of legitimate animal control activities. The risk created by shipping pets to the United States could be minimized by requiring that no animals be sent from Iraq or Afghanistan unless vaccinated at least 30 days prior to entry and placed in an extended stateside quarantine for further observation.
For the average soldier, the DoD should start with the same advice given to schoolchildren in the United States. No one should approach a dog or cat who is behaving strangely or aggressively, or drooling at the mouth. If an animal is behaving normally, and in a friendly manner, that animal is probably not rabid. The animals taken in by soldiers are more likely to fall within this latter category, and if a soldier decides to make a friend of such a creature, he or she should immediately apply for a vaccine to cement that friendship and make it a safer one.
AWOL from GO-1A
The refugees from GO-1A have unique stories, but share one thing in common. They have already made it to the United States—on the strength of someone’s will and ingenuity, and sympathy.
There is Bashur, who, nursed back to health by an army major, left Kirkuk, Iraq for a home in Illinois. Bashur rode 640 miles in a crate as part of a military convoy, all the way to Kuwait.
There is Lava, a filthy, flea-bitten mutt found by Marines in Fallujah, whose rescuer, a lieutenant colonel, worked with a reporter, the Helen Woodward Animal Center, and others to get Lava to Jordan, and then to California.
There is Ratchet, the subject of an Animal Cops: Houston profile that focused on one Texas soldier who went the extra mile—and then some—in his efforts to send home a puppy he befriended.
Unfortunately, the principal routes of escape in Iraq’s canine “underground railroad” have steadily been closed off, most notably the one that led through Jordan, a 10-hour trip across Iraq’s western desert. Not long ago, citing health risks, Jordan decided to prohibit the entry of additional dogs from Iraq.
If there is any silver lining in the fabric of this war’s impact on animals, it is the founding of the Iraqi Society for Animal Welfare by a group of Iraqi citizens and members of the 1st Armored Division and V corps. Chief among the founders is Iraqi veterinarian Farah Murrani, who met up with American military veterinarians while working at the Baghdad Zoo, which was ravaged by wartime looting in the weeks following the American invasion. Dr. Murrani attended HSI's international workshops at The HSUS Animal Care Expo in 2005. Unfortunately, ISAW is presently inactive as their work became too dangerous amidst the continuing conflict.
An Rx for Morale
An army may march on its stomach, but it survives on its morale. Whatever its motivations for the confiscation and killing of animals, our government should do more to reconcile the imperatives of public health and safety with the humane instincts of its military personnel. The keeping of animals by soldiers is an American tradition, one that should be honored and celebrated. In this sense, GO-1A is a grim “about-face.”
The U.S. government ought to do whatever it reasonably can to encourage and sustain the morale of our fighting men and women. Given all that we know about the mental health benefits of keeping companion animals, why not strive for a kinder and better solution for the soldiers who risk their lives each day? But there is an even larger purpose at issue. The military’s current draconian approach is inconsistent with its own actions in helping to build an animal shelter to anchor the new animal welfare organization in Iraq. By honoring our soldiers’ compassionate inclinations, we can set a better example for Iraqis who, it is to be hoped, will embrace animal welfare as an important element in the reconstruction of civil society in their nation.
As for Secretary Rumsfeld and other sponsors of the prohibition on pets and mascots, they might do well to ponder the declaration of Napoleon, saved by a Newfoundland dog after falling overboard during an attempt to escape exile on the island of Elba. “Here, gentlemen,” the ex-Emperor observed, “a dog teaches us a lesson in humanity.”
What You Can Do
Tell the Department of Defense to reverse military policy about pet keeping among U.S. troops. Tell them that a policy that includes a vaccination campaign would not only be good for public health, but also good for soldier morale.
Bernard Unti, senior policy advisor and special assistant to the president, received his doctorate in U.S. history in 2002 from American University. His book, Protecting All Animals: A Fifty-Year History of The Humane Society of the United States, is available from Humane Society Press.
