December 04, 2003, 8:45 a.m.
Failure of Command
The case of Lt. Col. Allen B. West.
Last October, one American soldier a young trooper
untrained in handling prisoners was told to guard an
Iraqi prisoner. In a small area confined only by a strand
of wire, the soldier was told to watch the man, and to
shoot him if he tried to get away.
The soldier daydreamed, as young men tend to do, more
than most; an instant later the daydream was over, the
prisoner was near the wire, and the soldier did as he
was ordered. He shot the man dead.
That soldier, a member of the Fourth Infantry Division,
hadn't been trained in interrogation or other aspects of
prisoner management. Instead of facing court martial for
the killing, the soldier was thrown out of the army when
the JAG lawyer made a deal.
A few months before that incident, around August 8,
another member of the Fourth I.D. an artillery officer
and a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War was assigned as
a civil military-affairs officer in a hot zone in the Sunni
Triangle. His job placed him in daily contact with local
leaders, and his responsibility was to help them help
the army, to run local elections, and stamp out the
insurgents.
The officer was told by the intel people that they had
solid information, from three sources, about a plot
to assassinate him. He wasn't very concerned, his
attention focused on a scheduled local election only
a few weeks away. His boss told him to stay off the
streets for a few days, and he did.
Readying to go back out on patrol on August 16, the
lieutenant colonel was stopped at the gate by some
locals who wanted to talk to him. The patrol went on
without him, and was ambushed. No Americans were
hurt, but the officer was convinced of the plot.
Between August 16 and 20, intelligence identified
an Iraqi policeman who was allegedly involved in the
assassination plot, and the man was arrested on Aug.
20. According to the officer's defense attorney, this
is what happened.
Lt. Col. Allen B. West was told the policeman was
uncooperative, so he took a few of his men to the
interrogation area to see for himself, where he found
the prisoner being questioned by two female officers.
They told him the man was belligerent, and wasn't giving
them any information. (Surprise, surprise. The idiocy
of having women question male Arab prisoners is apparent to everyone except the army commanders.)
West entered the room, sat across from the man, drew
his pistol, and placed it in his lap. West told him he
had come to either get information, or to kill him. The
prisoner responded by smiling and saying, "I love you."
The interrogation continued, and one of West's troops
lost his temper and started slapping the man. West then
had his men take the prisoner outside, where he again
threatened the man, telling him that he would kill him
on the count of five if he didn't tell what he knew. The
prisoner refused, and West fired his pistol into the air.
The interrogation continued, but not the beating. After
about 20 more minutes of useless questioning, West
grabbed the man, held him down near a box full of sand
used to discharge jammed weapons, and said something
like, "This is it. I'm going to count to five again, and if
you don't give me what I want, I'm going to kill you."
West held the man down, counted to five, and then
fired his pistol into the discharging box about a foot
from the Iraqi's head. He began talking. Over the next
few minutes, the prisoner gave very specific
information about the plot. He named the
conspirators, gave times and dates of the
assassination plan, and even described how
attacks would be made.
West and his men went back to their base camp.
The lieutenant colonel immediately went to his
boss, woke him up, and told him what he had
done, and about the information he'd gotten
from the Iraqi. West didn't say anything about what
his troops had done.
The boss Col. Kevin Stramara responded only by
saying something like, "Alan, we need to take the high
road." Leaving Stramara, West went to the medics' area,
and ordered one of the doctors to examine and treat the
prisoner. The doctor found the man bruised and
scared, but not injured in any significant way.
The next day, West briefed his own staff about the
incident, and told them he took full responsibility. And
that, West thought, was that. Apparently so did Stramara, who never even reported the incident.
The local election was postponed, the ambushes were
avoided, and all was quiet until a disgruntled sergeant
wrote a long, rambling letter to the commanding general
of the Fourth I.D., Gen. Ray Odierno. The letter
complains about harassment by Stramara, inconsistent
uniform discipline, disrespect of officers by enlisted men,
and mentions the West incident only in passing.
The Lawyers ended up with the letter,
and that's where the PC Police took over.
According to a source close to the case, the staff judge
advocate the head lawyer of the division at
first didn't believe what the letter said about West,
because she thought the incident would have been
reported by Stramara, and it hadn't been.
In the investigation that followed, two junior officers
drafted a report. That report is tainted: It didn't
go directly to the JAG or the commanding general,
but went instead to Stramara, who made changes to
it and then got the two junior officers to sign it.
Suddenly, on October 4, West was relieved of his
command. On October 18th, two weeks to the day
before he would become vested in his army retirement
program, West was told he either had to resign
or face court martial.
Not wanting to lose his pension, West refused. His
offer to resign after his benefits kicked in was rejected.
An Article 32 hearing the military equivalent of
a grand jury heard the charges against West in
November. The results of that hearing are due any
day, and may recommend felony charges against West.
What Allen West did was wrong. But there is nothing
he did that warrants a court martial or a felony
conviction: It's clear that the lawyers and the
careerists in the Army have decided to make
an example of him.
But an example of what? After tossing out a soldier
who killed a prisoner, how does it help to court martial
another who intimidated a prisoner without injuring him,
and actually got information that may have saved American lives?
No army can fight and win if the officers don't have the
trust of their troops. Col. Kevin Stramara, West's boss
who didn't ever see sufficient import in what West
told him the night of the incident to report it testified
at the Article 32 hearing.
With about a dozen of his troops listening, Stramara
was asked, "If you had to choose between following
the rules and saving American lives, which would you
choose?" His answer: "I don't know. I'd have to have
some more details." While Stramara looks for those
details, his men know their lives may be lost.
His instinct is to cover his butt, not to save his
troops.
Of course the ends don't justify the means, but to
crucify Allen West and leave Stramara in command
will damage whatever trust the troops of the Fourth
I.D. have for their commanders.
Ask yourself: Would you like your 19-year-old son
serving on a battlefield under this man? Or under the
generals who trust his judgment more than Allen West's?
As West awaits the Article 32 results, there is a growing
problem of clouded standards. It's no use to simply tell
the troops that you have to follow the Geneva
Conventions. They are, by necessity, in broad terms.
Torture and abuse are outlawed. But does slapping a
man or frightening him by discharging a pistol near him
violate the Conventions? Hardly.
Of the many e-mails I've received about this case
mostly from Marines the question raised is almost
always, "Why are they prosecuting this man?" Why,
indeed.
It would be a great mistake to believe that the army's
action on this case will be unimportant. The troops are
following it closely, and the decision on whether West
is court martialed will reverberate throughout the force.
The community of warriors is both close and tight, and
very well informed. They talk about these things, and
take them to heart. I described the facts of the West
case to a couple of the active-duty warriors I know,
and their reaction was the same. They told me that
court martialing West will damage the trust the troops
place in their commanders. One went so far as to
say, "They'll wonder what the hell Odierno is smoking."
We must keep faith with the troops by holding them
to clear standards, and punishing those who violate
them with judgment and consistency. Allen West is
neither a hero nor a war criminal. Reprimand and retire
him, and then rid the command of those who really made
this mess: those who are more concerned with their
image than with the loyalty they must show to their
troops.
NRO Contributor Jed Babbin was a deputy
undersecretary of defense in the first Bush
administration, and is now an MSNBC military
analyst.
