Army Lt. Col. Allen B. West update

[bodypilot90 0]

Friday, November 28, 2003


Members of Congress, Web sites back officer who faces punishment in Iraq interrogation case


By Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, November 28, 2003



ARLINGTON, Va. — The Army’s investigation of an officer accused of crossing the line in an attempt to get information from an Iraqi detainee is generating a grass-roots protest among some Americans who say the safety of troops trumps any temporary violation of interrogation rules.

Army Lt. Col. Allen B. West, who is assigned to the 4th Infantry Division’s 2nd Battalion, 20th Field Artillery Regiment, in Tikrit, Iraq, stands accused of actions that occurred Aug. 20, at a detainee holding site in Taji, Iraq.

Some members of Congress, meanwhile, are asking whether those rules may not be too strict in light of the all-out war on terror.

“We’re trying to bring democracy and a better way of life to [Iraq], and you don’t do that by employing terrorist tactics in reverse,” John M. McHugh, R-N.Y., said in a Tuesday telephone interview. “But how many American lives are we willing to trade for ideals?

“Maybe the days of putting someone in a comfortable chair and giving them a cigarette are over.”

In testimony during his Article 32 hearing last week, West, 42, said he had received information that Yahya Jhodri Hamoodi, an Iraqi policeman, was allegedly involved in a plot to attack him and his troops.

Article 32 investigations are pretrial proceedings that determine whether a servicemember should face court-martial.

West said he had Hamoodi brought in for questioning, but that the Iraqi would not cooperate, so West led him out of the detention facility to a weapons cleaning area, gave him to a count of five to talk, and then fired two shots near the detainee.

Hamoodi then gave information that led to the detention of additional suspects in the attack.

West said he immediately filed a report to his commanding officer, detailing the incident.

“I knew [my career] was over,” West said during the trial. “I know that the method that I used was not the right method … [but] to protect my soldiers, I’ll go to hell with a gasoline can in my hand.”

One month later, West was relieved of his command. A preliminary investigation by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division alleged that West’s actions were in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

With the Article 32 hearing concluded, the case “is now in the hands of the investigative officer,” Lt. Col. Jimmy Davis, according to Master Sgt. Robert Cargie, a spokesman for the 4th ID in Tikrit.

There are three “courses of action” Davis could recommend, Cargie said in a Monday telephone interview: dismiss the case; proceed with Article 15 charges, which are administrative, internal sanctions; or “continue to process to a court-martial.”

Davis will make his recommendation directly to the 4th ID’s commanding officer, Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, Cargie said.

West has been assigned administrative duties while awaiting the outcome of the investigation, Cargie said. He refused to discuss details of West’s case, citing the pending recommendation.

In a Monday e-mail from Iraq, West also declined to comment on specifics concerning his case.

“I never wanted a public event as such we have,” West wrote. “I will not open my voice until this is resolved and I stand in embrace with my wife and daughters, all that matters right now.”

He referred additional questions to his attorney, retired Marine Lt. Col. Neal Puckett, who is in Tikrit with West awaiting the outcome of the investigation. Puckett did not reply to e-mail and telephone messages seeking comment.

Public debate

West’s case has caught the attention of many Americans, including several who have e-mailed Stars and Stripes with their concerns.

Typical of those e-mails was this missive from retired Air Force member Roy S. Alba II of San Antonio:

“If the United States Army wants to improve morale they should promote LTC West way ahead of his peers,” Alba wrote. “Besides providing tardy justice to West it will also say to the enemy, ‘We’re taking the gloves off so don’t screw with us!’” wrote Alba.

Alba concluded: “Nice guys finish last!”

Angela West, West’s wife of 14 years, said in a Tuesday telephone interview that she has personally received “five or six thousand” letters and e-mails regarding her husband’s predicament, and that they have been running “almost 100 percent positive.”

“People are being very supportive of him, and I’m glad,” Angela West said. “It’s a huge support base, especially [responses from] the military.”

Grass-roots support for West appears to be largely driven by the Internet, where at least two dozen Web sites and chat rooms are tackling the controversy.

Most of the sites lean conservative or are devoted to military and veteran’s issues. At least two outlets, liberty.conservativepetitions.com/petitions.php and patriotpetitions.us/colwest/, have electronic petitions prepared they say will be sent to members of Congress, the Pentagon and White House.

On the liberty conservative petition site, opened Nov. 10, 640 people had registered their signatures as of Wednesday. There is no signature count associated with the patriotpetition site.

West also has champions in Congress, including McHugh, who is chairman of the House Armed Service’s Committee’s Subcommittee on Total Force, which has jurisdiction over military personnel matters, and House Armed Service Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.

Hunter and McHugh have sent two letters to acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee, requesting copies of the CID report and the Article 32 hearing transcripts involving the West case.

“We’re looking for the facts,” McHugh said. “We’re not urging a specific outcome here, or suggesting that what [West] did is totally OK, [but] we are looking for justice.”

McHugh said he heard about West “six or eight weeks ago,” while listening to a talk radio show by conservative host G. Gordon Liddy.

Subsequently, “more than two dozen members [of the House] have come up to me to comment, complain about [West’s case] or demand some kind of action on it,” McHugh said, calling such numbers “surprising.”

“When you have that level of member concern, you try to respond to it,” McHugh said.

Senior Army officials at the Pentagon will not discuss the West case, spokesman Maj. Steve Stover said Monday, “because we want to avoid undue command influence” on the outcome of the hearing.

View from the Hill

It’s difficult to say whether the congressional interest will help or harm West, according to attorney Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice in Washington.

“The value of congressional inquiries [into military justice cases] is not very clear,” Fidell said in a Monday telephone interview. “They often prove perfunctory, or worse yet, can backfire and harm the person that they are seeking to help,” because military officials resent the interference.

McHugh, however, said that while the West case “is obviously important for Colonel West, there are a number of larger, legitimate questions here” about the use of force in interrogations.

“We’re concerned about the longer-term implications,” McHugh said. “The challenge is that there are far too many detainees who don’t take us seriously.

“No one is saying we should engage in wholesale beatings and intimidation, but this is a new era,” he said. “The question we might ask ourselves is, within the bounds of humane treatment, should we be a little less strict” regarding the rules of interrogations?

Angela West agreed.

“There’s a bigger picture here,” she said. “We’re really not getting information from these guys (the Iraqis).”

“If [West’s] actions prevented four [soldiers’] lives from being lost, then I wish their families a great Thanksgiving,” Angela West said.

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In reading another conservative on line publication by Chuck Muth, he had a reader send in an idea he acted on. That is to contact various governmental agencies to register your concern for Mr. West, and put a stop to this. The White House comment line is open during the day, the phone # is 202-456-1111. They gave Sec. Of Defense Don Rumsfeld's phone #703-692-7100. The people there listened and issued another phone number for the Department of Defense comment line 202-428-0711, who in turn gave him another comment line of 703-692-2613.


I did the same, and I urge you to do so as well. When I called the DOD number, there was a recording directing me to two other numbers in Texas if this was about the West case. The day phone number is 254-287-0106, and 287-2520 during the evening. I think they are getting the message, but they need to hear more.


I would suggest leaving your name and phone number, and please be short and to the point.

[Lee03 0]

I'll make the calls, thanks for the phone numbers! Col West is a HERO in every sense of the word! He deserves a medal, NOT this BULLSHIT treatment/possible coart-martial that the politically correctness, left-wing, communist-oriented crowd, led by the likes of BITCH clinton, and her ilk will demand, and sadly will probably get! God Bless Col West! To HELL with political correctness!

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To put your life in danger from time to time ... breeds a saneness in dealing with day-to-day trivialities.

--Nevil Shute, Slide Rule

[bodypilot90 0]

Thanks Lee, we need to back this current day hero.

[Lee03 0]

DAMN RIGHT we do! Another one that should have been backed, but SHITHEAD klinton saw too it that he was kicked out of service with a punitive discharge (which I hear, and hope will be overturned) instead, was Michael New! Political correctness is a blight..a cancer that is not so slowly destroying our military! People need to wake up and realize the truth and reality! The military is the ONLY thing that "keeps the wolf away from the door!" If it is allowed to continue to destroy the military, one day there will be no one to keep the wolf away from the door, and this country will find itself in deep shit.. in a serious hurt locker! We need people in leadership rolls in our government that support the military, NOT like BITCH and BASTARD klinton, that loath the military and want only to destroy it! Thanks for posting this.

Semper Fi,
Lee

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To put your life in danger from time to time ... breeds a saneness in dealing with day-to-day trivialities.

--Nevil Shute, Slide Rule

[vonSanta 0]

Just out of curiosity (not a flame or meaning to be offensive): how far would you be willing to go?

If you possibly could save 4 US soldiers by doing what West did, would you do it?

If there was a 50/50 chance that you could get info that might save 4 US soldiers lives by beating up a prisoner severly, would you?

Same as above, but to possibly get the information, you'd have to cut off the arms and use lighters and cigarette butts, would you?

20/80 chance. You're not sure you got the right guy, but if you do you could save 4 men from an ambush, would you beat the prisoner to within an inch of his life, then pull out his teeth, cut off his fingers, chop off his nose and ears, let his wounds fester, apply electricity to his genitals before cutting them off, open up his bowels and make a knot on them... would you?

Am seriously just wondering where the "new line" would be with regards to acceptable/non acceptable behaviour.

I should add that I think West did the right thing here.

Santa Von GrossenArsch
I only come in one flavour
ohwaitthatcanbemisunderst

[kallend 2,146]

Just a question:

Was it heroic for the Gestapo to torture Norwegian and Danish and Polish and French resistance members to obtain information that might save the lives of German troops? They did a lot of that.

Were the Gestapo that did this heros to their own troops? Did they deserve promotions?

If not, why not?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kpjumps 0]

Calls made and prayers for his family added. A brave man, who made a tough call and protected the men in his command.

Thanks for the info.

~A marine's daughter

Your character will ultimately determine your destiny.

[Lee03 0]

You ask how far would I go? I was a Platoon Sergeant and later a Company Gunnery Sergeant when I was in the Marines. The most important thing to me was the lives of the people that I was in charge of. How far would I go to protect them, how far would I go if I even THOUGHT it would save one of their lives? I would do anything that you mentioned in your questions if there was even a THOUGHT that it would save the lives of the people in my charge!

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To put your life in danger from time to time ... breeds a saneness in dealing with day-to-day trivialities.

--Nevil Shute, Slide Rule

[Remster 30]

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20/80 chance. You're not sure you got the right guy, but if you do you could save 4 men from an ambush, would you beat the prisoner to within an inch of his life, then pull out his teeth, cut off his fingers, chop off his nose and ears, let his wounds fester, apply electricity to his genitals before cutting them off, open up his bowels and make a knot on them... would you?

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I would do anything that you mentioned in your questions if there was even a THOUGHT that it would save the lives of the people in my charge!

wow...

Remster

[kpjumps 0]

War sucks, doesn't it? Sometimes we forget that the other side contains real people with real families sticking to their real beliefs. Families and beliefs that they, too, tresure. Not making any grand statement, just remembering the pictures my dad took in Vietnam of real kids begging for food cause their parents were gone fighting and dying for something they believed in, much as my dad was doing. We can't know what Mr. West went through, we didn't walk in his shoes. But I know my dad offered (and eventually gave) his life for this country and the only thing he wanted was support from the folks back home. So, let's support Mr. West. And keep the enemy in our prayers, not their causes but their families and their heart breaks.

Your character will ultimately determine your destiny.

[bodypilot90 0]

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Just a question:

have you ever been in the military? I'm not talk about working for the gov't?

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Was it heroic for the Gestapo to torture Norwegian and Danish and Polish and French resistance members to obtain information

Not the same since Lt Col. west never tortured anyone.

[Jimbo 0]

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Not the same since Lt Col. west never tortured anyone.

I agree. He scared him, and probably even threatened him. Was he tortured? No. Was this even remotely similar to what the Nazi's did to Norwegian, Danish, Polish, and French resistance members? Probably not.

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[catfishhunter 2]

Point that seems to be missed here is that we are dealing with COWARDS who kill civilians. We are not talking about soliders whom have rights under the Geneva Convention. These are terrorist whom kill innocents. Funny how people forget the atrocities these people commit then expect the people sent to find and KILL them to do so in a kind and gentle manner. Just how do you kill someone in a kind and gentle manner? And if for some reason you don't think we are there to kill them maybe ya better listen to the presidents speeches over again.

This Qoute fits "Kill em all and let God sort em out"

MAKE EVERY DAY COUNT
Life is Short and we never know how long we are going to have. We must live life to the fullest EVERY DAY. Everything we do should have a greater purpose.

[Jimbo 0]

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Point that seems to be missed here is that we are dealing with COWARDS who kill civilians. We are not talking about soliders whom have rights under the Geneva Convention. These are terrorist whom kill innocents. Funny how people forget the atrocities these people commit then expect the people sent to find and KILL them to do so in a kind and gentle manner. Just how do you kill someone in a kind and gentle manner? And if for some reason you don't think we are there to kill them maybe ya better listen to the presidents speeches over again.

One man's terrorist is another man's soldier. Wouldn't you agree?

That said, I still stand by Lt. Col. West, and his decision.

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[jkm2500 0]

I have been in the Army for 6 years. I am a Non-Commisioned Officer, and I am currently in Iraq. Now, it is convenient to sit back in the comfort of your homes in the Unites States and say that you would or would not do this in this certain situation. However, how many of you have watched an American soldier die from their wounds...I have. I watched as 2 soldiers lost thier lives. I have seen others who were injured, and had to be returned to the States for surgery to put them back together.

I don't think that it is fair to fight a battle while being hamstrung. The Iraqi's have no qualms with torturing and killing US soldiers. My question for you is why can't we use thier tactics? I understand that we are supposed to be the moral leaders, but that isnt saving lives. In the situation that LTC west was in, I would have done the same thing. I probably would have gone a lot farther, if there was the possibility of saving American lives. I say that LTC West is a hero!

The primary purpose of the Armed Forces is to prepare for and to prevail in combat should the need arise.

[kpjumps 0]

I have been in the Army for 6 years. I am a Non-Commisioned Officer, and I am currently in Iraq.

Thanks for putting your neck on the line so others can sit over here and debate whether or not you should be there. Not only is LT Col West a hero, so are you and everyone like you.

Your safe return remains in the prayers of Americans~

Kris

Your character will ultimately determine your destiny.

[kallend 2,146]

Quote

Quote

Just a question:

have you ever been in the military? I'm not talk about working for the gov't?

Quote

Was it heroic for the Gestapo to torture Norwegian and Danish and Polish and French resistance members to obtain information

Not the same since Lt Col. west never tortured anyone.

In that case I'm sure the trial will exonerate him.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[SkydiverRick 0]

Lt Col West threw his career on a grenade to save his buddies. Right or wrong he is a brave man. I hope his men appreciate what they have lost.

never pull low......unless you are

[kallend 2,146]

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Point that seems to be missed here is that we are dealing with COWARDS who kill civilians. We are not talking about soliders whom have rights under the Geneva Convention. These are terrorist whom kill innocents. Funny how people forget the atrocities these people commit then expect the people sent to find and KILL them to do so in a kind and gentle manner. Just how do you kill someone in a kind and gentle manner? And if for some reason you don't think we are there to kill them maybe ya better listen to the presidents speeches over again.

This Qoute fits "Kill em all and let God sort em out"

I thought the President said "Bring 'em on".

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kallend 2,146]

Quote

Quote

Point that seems to be missed here is that we are dealing with COWARDS who kill civilians. We are not talking about soliders whom have rights under the Geneva Convention. These are terrorist whom kill innocents. Funny how people forget the atrocities these people commit then expect the people sent to find and KILL them to do so in a kind and gentle manner. Just how do you kill someone in a kind and gentle manner? And if for some reason you don't think we are there to kill them maybe ya better listen to the presidents speeches over again.

One man's terrorist is another man's soldier. Wouldn't you agree?

That said, I still stand by Lt. Col. West, and his decision.

-
Jim

I am sure LTC West is a good man. It is important to remember that the rules work in our favor just as much as they work in favor of an enemy. If we don't follow the rules then who are we to complain if the other side doesn't.

Trial by letter writing and by speechmaking in Congress is not the way to justice in this or any other case.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[newsstand 0]

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This Qoute fits "Kill em all and let God sort em out"

Right, and we are the "good guys." When you stoop to the level of the enemy you become the enemy. Doesn't matter if it is a person who supports us or hates us?

We are in Iraq for two reasons. 1) Oil and 2) To avenge GHWB - "They tried to kill my daddy." Don't think there is any other reason for this.

None of the terrorists who attacked our country came from Iraq. No funding, as far as we can tell, came from Iraq, we haven't found any WMD's in Iraq. Oil and revenge that is all there is.

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[andybr6 0]

I suppose i should start with my discalimer saying that I am not an American [though being British my countries soldiers are out there too] and I am not soldier [though i am the son one]. I dont agree at all with what Col. West did but i can understand it, that does not change the fact that he should not have acted as he did. If you are going into a country to give them a democracy and humane morals you cannot go about acting like the previous government, the Iraqi people whose support is needed will think that nothing has changed.
I dont however agree that what he did was "torture" but it is the beggining that will inevitable lead to that. Col. West may have fired shots near the prisoner but if he is allowed to do that then the next person will take it a step further, and the next person a step further still until the bullets are not missing! This is how it started in Russia with the secret police, interrogation tactics were left unchecked until they got to the stage where officers could do whatever they liked.
I beleive Col. West must be shown to have acted wrongly if the use of these measures is going to be stopped at this early stage. However he should not be set up as an example for two reasons, one, he does not deserve it, yes he acted badly but it was under high stress in a situation that most of us will never have to be in, and two, he cannot be made a martyr to the cause of those who would torture POW's.
It is important that in the highly complex and volatile situation in Iraq where we that are supposed to be showing how to govern people, we practice what we preach.

------------------------------------------------

"All men can fly, but sadly, only in one direction"

[kai2k1 0]

COL West deserves a Medal for his actions. Not a Court Martial.

There's no truer sense of flying than sky diving," Scott Cowan

[downplanetim 0]

LTC West is Truly a hero, I'am a soldier and LTC West is the kind of Officer we need in todays Army.

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***Mission First Soldiers Always

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[MC208B 0]

Shawn, I don't think this post has to do with why we are over there. We are there and the safety and safe return of our troopers is what matters now.

LTC West should not be prosecuted for what he did. Was it right? Probably not, but it got what he wanted accomplished. Some of our soldiers didn't die because of the colonels actions.

I'm an in country veteran of our least popular (and the only one we lost) war. Things were very politically incorrect way back then. The VC and NVA used to get a one way ride up in a slick and if they got talkative, they got a R/T ticket. Now that was wrong! (still, it accomplished some goals)

And I thank God that I wasn't one of the particpants in any of those chopper rides.