US troops ‘thought killing civilians was legal’

Irish Examiner
Posted : 2007-09-04 23:14:55

The documents, released yesterday by the American Civil Liberties Union ahead of a lawsuit, total nearly 10,000 pages of courts martial summaries, transcripts and military reports about 22 incidents.

The killings include the drowning of a man soldiers pushed from a bridge into the Tigris river as punishment for breaking curfew, and the suffocation during interrogation of a former Iraqi general believed to be helping insurgents.

Soldiers covered the man's head with a sleeping bag, then wrapped his neck with an electrical cord in what they insisted was an approved technique.

Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer was convicted of negligent homicide over the death of Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush at a January 2006 court martial that got wide media attention due to possible CIA involvement in the interrogation.

Welshofer insisted his actions were appropriate and standard.

"Interrogation is supposed to be stressful or you will get no information," Welshofer wrote in a letter to the court asking for clemency. An interrogation without stress is not an interrogation - it is a conversation."

Welshofer said in the same letter that he was "within the appropriate constraints that both the rules of law, and just as importantly, duty, imposed on me".

Meanwhile, Baghdad has not met 11 of its 18 political and security goals, according to an independent report on Iraq that challenges US President George W Bush's assessment on the war.

The study, conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was slightly more upbeat than initially planned. After receiving substantial pushback from the White House, the GAO determined four benchmarks - instead of two - had been partially met.

But GAO stuck with its original contention that only three goals out of the 18 had been achieved.

The goals met included establishing joint security stations in the capital Baghdad, ensuring minority rights in the Iraqi legislature and creating support committees for the Baghdad security plan.