Clare Dyer and Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday March 4, 2002
The Guardian
The Pentagon has stopped the world's two leading experts on combat stress from giving
evidence for 254 ex-servicemen with post-traumatic stress disorder in their action against
the Ministry of Defence, which opens today at the high court in London.
Matthew Friedman, a psychiatrist, and Terence Keane, a psychologist, are both US
government employees, working in the department of veterans affairs. They have delivered
hefty reports to the claimants' solicitors and were to have been key witnesses. But the US
defence department has vetoed their attendance.
A source close to the case said: "The Pentagon doesn't see any advantage to their
coming. What they don't want is the bad publicity of reports of them slagging off the
Americans' main allies."
Mr Justice Owen, the judge trying the case, is angry, but the pair cannot be subpoenaed
because they are outside English jurisdiction.
The case is the biggest to be brought against the MoD. It could cost the services up to
£500m if they lose, and tens of millions even if they win.
The ex-soldiers, veterans of combat in Northern Ireland, the Falklands, the Gulf and
Bosnia, claim the MoD was negligent in failing to prepare them for battle, to screen out
vulnerable individuals, to debrief them properly, to recognise and treat PTSD, and to help
them cope with their return to civilian life.