Suspect soldiers: Did crimes in U.S. foretell violence in Iraq?
By Russell Carollo | Sacramento Bee

Before Army Sgt. 1st Class Randal Ruby was accused in Iraq of beating prisoners and of conspiring to plant rifles on dead civilians, he amassed a 10-year criminal record in Colordao and Washington state for assaulting his wife and in Maine for a drunken high-speed police chase, for which he remains wanted.

Before Lance Cpl. Delano Holmes stabbed an Iraqi private to death, angering the soldier’s unit of coalition soldiers, he was hospitalized after threatening suicide in high school, accused of assault, disorderly conduct and trespassing, and, in the months leading up to deployment, twice linked to drug use.

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A yearlong examination of military and civilian records by The Sacramento Bee involving hundreds of troops who entered the services since the Iraq war began identified 120 cases of people whose backgrounds should have raised the suspicions of military recruiters, including felony convitions and serious drug, alcohol or mental health problems.

Of those, 70 later were involved in controversial or criminal incidents in Iraq.