Excite News: "Army Officer Found Guilty in Iraqi's Death | Jan 22, 6:41 AM (ET) | By JON SARCHE

FORT CARSON, Colo. (AP) - An Army interrogator committed negligent homicide when he put a sleeping bag over an Iraqi general's head and sat on his chest as the man suffocated, a military jury found.

Attorneys for Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. said he believed the general had information that would 'break the back of the whole insurgency' at a time when soldiers were being killed in an increasingly lethal and bold resistance.

But prosecutor Maj. Tiernan Dolan maintained that Welshofer tortured Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush at a detention camp in 2003, treating him 'worse than you would treat a dog.'

After six hours of deliberations, the panel of six Army officers spared Welshofer on the more serious charge of murder - which carries a potential life sentence - instead convicting him late Saturday of negligent homicide and negligent dereliction of duty. He was acquitted of assault.

Welshofer stood silently and showed no reaction when the verdict was announced. He could be dishonorably discharged and sentenced to a maximum three years and three months in prison at a Monday hearing.
...
The treatment of the Iraqi general "could fairly be described as torture," Dolan said. ...
- posted by Editor @ 6:55 AM

US Army its own worst enemy: British officer - World - smh.com.au: "January 12, 2006

A senior British Army officer has written a scathing critique of the US Army and its performance in Iraq, accusing it of cultural ignorance, moralistic self-righteousness, unproductive micromanagement and unwarranted optimism.

His publisher: the US Army.

In an article published this week in the army magazine Military Review, Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, who was deputy commander of a program to train the Iraqi military, said American officers in Iraq displayed such "cultural insensitivity" that it "arguably amounted to institutional racism" and may have spurred the growth of the insurgency.

The US Army has been slow to adapt its tactics, he argues, and its approach during the early stages of the occupation "exacerbated the task it now faces by alienating significant sections of the population". ...

- posted by Editor @ 9:05 PM

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | MPs leaked Bush plan to hit al-Jazeera: " David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor | Monday January 9, 2006 | The Guardian

� Transcript of meeting with Blair passed to US contact -- � Official and aide already charged over document

Two Labour MPs have defied the Official Secrets Act by passing on the contents of a secret British document revealing how President George Bush wanted to bomb the Arabic TV station, al-Jazeera. ...
- posted by Editor @ 5:10 AM

Reuters AlertNet - Pentagon says Rumsfeld nixed Bremer troop request: "09 Jan 2006 21:34:26 GMT | Source: Reuters | By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld turned down a request in May 2004 by Paul Bremer, the U.S. diplomat governing Iraq at the time, for hundreds of thousands more U.S. troops during a particularly violent period in the Iraq war, the Pentagon acknowledged on Monday.

Bremer, who governed Iraq for 13 months after President Saddam Hussein was toppled, said in an NBC interview aired on Sunday that he wrote a memo in May 2004 to Rumsfeld suggesting that about 500,000 U.S. troops were needed, more than three times the 142,000 in Iraq at the time.

Congressional critics in both parties argued at the time that the Pentagon had deployed too few troops to maintain order, restore essential services and combat an insurgency that was escalating in spring 2004. April 2004, the month before Bremer's memo, was the deadliest of the war to date for U.S. forces.

Lawrence Di Rita, chief Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Rumsfeld asked Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and top commanders in Iraq to evaluate Bremer's recommendation and others." ...
- posted by Editor @ 9:07 PM