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Iraq-Jordan
A Look Back at the Case of Colonel West
2004-05-27
From The New York Times
.... Intent on foiling a reported plot to ambush him and his men, Colonel [Allen] West, a battalion commander, made a calculated decision to intimidate the Iraqi officer with a show of force. An interrogation under way was going nowhere, Colonel West said in an interview, and he chose to take the matter into his own hands. .... Colonel West wanted the Iraqi policeman, Yehiya Kadoori Hamoodi, to think "this was going to be the end" if he did not divulge what he knew. So Colonel West presided over what he considered a time-sensitive interrogation that grew steadily more abusive until he himself fired a pistol beside Mr. Hamoodi’s head. ....

Expressing concern that his behavior could send the signal that abuse was acceptable as a means to an end, the Army relieved Colonel West of his command and contemplated court-martialing him on assault charges. When Colonel West’s case became public last fall, it, too, provoked a debate about appropriate conduct during wartime. But that debate had a far different tenor than the much larger one raging now. ....

Then, however, Colonel West’s many defenders argued that the military should have viewed Colonel West as a hero who did not disobey rules so much as rise above them. .... Ninety-five members of Congress signed a letter to the secretary of the Army supporting the colonel. Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, a Republican and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who has pressed for accountability in the Abu Ghraib affair, expressed empathy for the colonel in a letter to constituents. ....

But the record of his case is unclear on whether the Iraqi officer provided valuable information, and Mr. Hamoodi said in an interview that he did not, because he knew nothing. .... In an interview in Baghdad, Mr. Hamoodi, a thin, bespectacled 31-year-old, said aides to Colonel West stopped by his police station and asked him to join them on patrol. Mr. Hamoodi climbed into the back of their open Humvee, he said, and the vehicle soon jerked off the road. Soldiers testified later that Mr. Hamoodi appeared to go for his weapon and needed to be subdued. Mr. Hamoodi said that one soldier punched him several times, and that he was handcuffed, shackled and blindfolded.

At the base, he said, they threw him, still bound, off the Humvee, then led him into the jail and eventually into an interrogation room. They pressed him for the details of an assassination plan, about which he knew nothing, he said. During the interrogation, he said, the translator kicked him in the shin and told him he needed to confess before Colonel West showed up to kill him. Mr. Hamoodi said he felt relieved to hear the colonel was expected. He considered Colonel West to be "calm, quiet, clever and sociable." When the colonel first entered the interrogation room, Mr. Hamoodi said, he thought, "Here is the man who will treat me fairly."

Then, he said, Colonel West cocked his gun. Colonel West said that he did not then put a round in the gun’s chamber but that he did place the pistol in his lap. He asked Mr. Hamoodi why he wanted to kill him. Mr. Hamoodi said that he protested, "I’ve worked with you, I like you," but that Colonel West silenced his protest. Colonel West pressed for the names and locations of those involved in the supposed plot, and he got no answers.

Soon, the soldiers began striking and shoving Mr. Hamoodi. They were not instructed to do so by Colonel West but they were not stopped, either, they said. .... Eventually, the colonel and his soldiers moved Mr. Hamoodi outside, and threatened him with death. Colonel West said he fired a warning shot in the air and began counting down from five. He asked his soldiers to put Mr. Hamoodi’s head in a sand-filled barrel usually used for clearing weapons. At the end of his count, Colonel West fired a shot into the barrel, angling his gun away from the Iraqi’s head, he testified.

According to the interpreter, Mr. Hamoodi finally "admitted there would be attacks, and called out names." Mr. Hamoodi said that he was not sure what he told the Americans, but that it was meaningless information induced by fear and pain. At least one man named by Mr. Hamoodi was taken into custody, according to testimony, and his home was searched. No plans for attacks on Americans or weapons were found. ....

When the interrogation was over, a physician’s assistant checked Mr. Hamoodi and found "swelling but no bruises," according to a hearing transcript. He was detained another 45 days and released without being charged, he said.

Mr. Hamoodi said he did not really blame the Americans for "arresting and torturing me." Obviously, someone had informed on him, he said, and they had to act on the information they obtained. Still, he trembles now when he sees a Humvee and he no longer trusts or works with the Americans. ...

Indeed, it is possible that the abusive interrogation might never have come to light if a sergeant in another battalion had not subsequently written a letter of complaint about the "command climate" under Colonel West’s superior officer. In that letter, the sergeant mentioned almost as an aside, according to Mr. Puckett, that Colonel West had interrogated a detainee using a pistol. An investigation was set in motion. .... The military decided against court-martialing Colonel West. He was fined $5,000, and he submitted his resignation, which becomes effective this summer, when he will retire with full benefits. ...
Posted by:Mike Sylwester

#12  Mike, I stand corrected and apologize. I should have read the entire (long....) article.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2004-05-27 1:27:03 PM  

#11  I get the NYT, mostly for the crosswords. But I have to laugh the other day when I discovered that even the resturant critic, Amanda Hesser, is being replaced by Frank Bruni (he wrote a pretty good book about the Bush presidential campaign) the current bureau chief in Rome. It seems Hesser (stop drinking your coffee and turn suprise meter on) gave a NYC resturant 3 stars in one review but failed to point out it was owned by a guy (chef) who gave her a 5 star reveiw/blurb for her recently published cook book. I mean, when you can't even divulge your bias in resturant reviews, how the hell can you expect anyone with any sense to read your other articles without leaning to the left as you read them?
Posted by: Jack is Back!   2004-05-27 12:54:09 PM  

#10  I'm glad to see he kept his retirement. He did the right thing and broke the rules. Now he's been punished for it and can get on with his life. More people are going to face choices like this before the War is over.
Posted by: Mr. Davis   2004-05-27 12:28:34 PM  

#9  Robert, read my #3.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester   2004-05-27 11:13:25 AM  

#8  Mr. Hamoodi climbed into the back of their open Humvee, he said, and the vehicle soon jerked off the road.

For some reason, I inhaled a tiny bit of coffee when I read this. :)
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2004-05-27 11:12:40 AM  

#7  Oddly, Mike, I don't believe you. Maybe because you did the same thing with another story.

*shrug*
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2004-05-27 11:02:30 AM  

#6  I dunno, Mike...in that you didn't make any comments, what you chose to post serves as the (editorial) commentary really.
(Take it from me, I blog and I do this everyday.)
Posted by: Jen   2004-05-27 11:00:16 AM  

#5  It's a long article, Robert, and so I cut a lot out. Every deletion is marked by elipses for your convenience. If you think something should be added here, then paste it into a comment.

I did not intend for my selections to present Col West in a bad light. I intended to present information that was new to people already familiar with the story as it was reported back when it was a current event.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester   2004-05-27 10:55:35 AM  

#4  But wasn't that your intent, Mike? Isn't that why you edited out anything that defends Colonel West?
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2004-05-27 10:45:42 AM  

#3  CrazyFool, I cut quite a bit out of the article for this posting. If you read the entire article, you would not characterize it as a smear of Colonel West.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester   2004-05-27 10:13:15 AM  

#2  This is from NY Times (that bastion of truch and unbalanced reporting -- now where is my medication?).

Of course they print only Mr. Hamoodi's account and take his statements as gospel. No fact checking with anyone else who might have been there.

I guess with the NY Times anything is ok as long as it smears a honorable U.S. Soldier (Or Bush...).
Posted by: CrazyFool   2004-05-27 9:54:13 AM  

#1  I see this as a robust interogation that resulted in no permanent harm. He was roughed up a bit and an attempt was made to scare him with the pistol. As I have pointed about before such lack of seriousness would get him fired from any Arab police force.
Posted by: Phil B   2004-05-27 9:51:20 AM  

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