The US Army private arrested in the biggest leak of classified material in US history pleaded guilty on Thursday to 10 charges that could send him to prison for 20 years, saying he was trying to expose the US military’s “bloodlust” and disregard for human life in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Military prosecutors said they plan to move forward with a court-martial on the 12 remaining charges against Bradley Manning, including aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence.
For the first time, Manning directly admitted leaking the material to the anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks and detailed the frustrations that led him to do it.
Photo: Reuters
“I began to become depressed at the situation we found ourselves mired in year after year. In attempting counterinsurgency operations, we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists,” the 25-year-old former intelligence analyst in Baghdad told a military judge. “I wanted the public to know that not everyone living in Iraq were targets to be neutralized.”
The slightly built soldier from Oklahoma read from a 35-page statement through his wire-rimmed glasses for more than an hour. He spoke quickly and evenly, showing little emotion even when he described how troubled he was by what he had seen.
The judge, Colonel Denise Lind, accepted his plea to 10 charges involving illegal possession or distribution of classified material. Manning was allowed to plead guilty under military regulations instead of federal espionage law, which knocked the potential sentence down from 92 years.
Manning admitted sending hundreds of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports, US Department of State diplomatic cables, other classified records and two battlefield video clips to WikiLeaks in 2009 and 2010.
He said he was disturbed by the conduct of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the way US troops treated the populace. He said he did not believe the release of the information would harm the US.
“I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information ... this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general,” Manning said.
Manning said he was appalled by a 2007 combat video of an assault by a US helicopter that killed 11 men, including a Reuters news photographer. The Pentagon concluded the troops mistook the camera equipment for weapons.
“The most alarming aspect of the video to me was the seemingly delightful bloodlust the aerial weapons team happened to have,” Manning said, adding that the soldiers’ actions “seemed similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass.”
As for the sensitive State Department cables, he said they “documented backdoor deals and criminality that didn’t reflect the so-called leader of the free world.”
“I thought these cables were a prime example of the need for a more open diplomacy,” Manning said. “I believed that these cables would not damage the United States. However, I believed these cables would be embarrassing.”
The battlefield reports were the first documents Manning decided to leak. He said he sent them to WikiLeaks after contacting the Washington Post and the New York Times. He said he felt a reporter at the Post did not take him seriously and a message he left for news tips at the Times was not returned.
The Obama administration has said the release of the documents threatened valuable military and diplomatic sources and strained relations with other governments.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia