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January 23, 2006
Kill an Iraqi...
Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer will be sentenced later this month, for the killing of Iraqi General Mowhoush. Placing someone in a sleeping bag (after being severly beaten and tied up), and suffocating him by sitting on the sleeping bag doesn't seem to count as murder, only negligent homicide.
A six-member court-martial board acquitted Welshofer Saturday of the original charge of murder, but found him guilty of the lesser offenses of negligent homicide and negligent dereliction of duty. He faces 39 months in prison.Welshofer, an Army interrogator, was accused of binding suspected insurgent leader Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush in a sleeping bag during an interrogation session, sitting on him, and placing his hand over Mowhoush's mouth and nose, causing him to suffocate.
Murder charges against three other soldiers in the room with Welshofer during the interrogation were dropped.
Two reached plea agreements and testified against Welshofer in exchange for reductions in their charges.
A murder charge against the third was determined to be unwarranted after an evidentiary hearing last March.
Now, the same six officers who convicted Welshofer will hear testimony from his family, friends and fellow soldiers about his character before deciding on his sentence.
There could be clues in the board's verdict to its feelings about Welshofer's actions on and before the Nov. 26, 2003, interrogation in a Qaim, Iraq, detention facility operated by Fort Carson's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.
In handing down the verdict of negligent homicide rather than murder, the panel seemed to side with Welshofer, who testified about the confusion and lack of command guidance on interrogation techniques for enemy captives.
Welshofer admitted only to "straddling" the sleeping bag on his knees, not pressing his full weight on the general, and covering his mouth to keep him from talking but never cutting off his air supply.
Testimony by prosecution witnesses implied that Welshofer intentionally caused Mowhoush's death and knowingly disregarded Army memoranda on interrogation regulations, which did not include the sleeping bag technique.
The panel's decision also discounted testimony from a secret witness from the CIA who said that Welshofer admitted knowledge of interrogation rules the day before Mowhoush's death and told him he was "pretty sure they were breaking the rules every day."
This, of course, seems to be a pattern. The very few charges that were brought against soldiers implicate in relatively high profile deaths end up with convictions on reduced charges and sentences that range from light to none (you'd do more time in jail in this country for not feeding your dog properly).
Welshofer is not the first Fort Carson soldier to be charged with illegally killing Iraqis during the 2003-04 deployment by more than 12,000 Fort Carson troops.First Lt. Jack Saville and Staff Sgt. Tracy Perkins of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team were charged with manslaughter after 19-year- old Zaidoun Fadel Hassoun allegedly drowned when the soldiers ordered him and his cousin to jump into the Tigris River after stopping them on a curfew violation in Samarra.
Hassoun's family recovered his body and buried him a few days later, but Army investigators never exhumed or positively identified the body to provide evidence that a death actually occurred.
Saville pleaded guilty to assault last March and was sentenced to 45 days in prison. Perkins was acquitted of the manslaughter charge last January.
Another Fort Carson soldier, Staff Sgt. Shane Werst, was charged with murdering Naser Ismail during a house search for insurgents and weapons in Balad in January 2004.
Werst argued that he shot Ismail in self-defense after Ismail lunged at the weapon of one of his soldiers. He was acquitted in a court-martial at Fort Hood, Texas, last May.
This weekend I was reading in the Washington Post that the Army had been incorporating counter-insurgency lessons into classes:
And because insurgencies are always political, politics can be more important than combat. "We can go in and kill insurgents, but it's the political piece that will bite you on the butt," noted another officer.Most of all, they said, the key to victory is not defeating the enemy but winning the support of Iraqis and making the insurgents irrelevant. "When the people start ratting out the insurgents, that's a quantifiable way of measuring your support," said a third officer.
How do they think this support is going to materialize as long as Iraqis know that their lives are worth so little?
Posted by zeynep at January 23, 2006 07:22 AM
Comments
Another big worry is that this kind of non-punishment will permeate these soldier's psyches. They'll return to civilian life with an idea that they can get away with murder, literally. I'm not suggesting that each of these soldiers will murder people at home, but it will make it all the more difficult for them to reintegrate themselves into a civilian life in which, if they commit a crime, they will be judged by regular folk, not military personnel trying to cover-up torture.
Posted by: The Rambling Taoist at January 23, 2006 05:42 PM
I wonder if anyone explored the question of why, if you were "interrogating" a prisoner, you would put your hand over his mouth "to prevent him from talking"? A new tactic: we have ways of shutting you up. As of course they do...
Posted by: rootlesscosmo at January 23, 2006 11:13 PM
Holy shit, next time I murder someone I'm going to complain about the "confusion and lack of command guidance", without which I can't tell that I'm an amoral fuckhead. Holy SHIT.
Posted by: saurabh at January 24, 2006 12:22 AM