I've come across a couple of other noteworthy items about the confessed torturer Lt. Col. Allen B. West. This MSNBC report tells us:
<< West, 42, of Atlanta, testified he had received information that Hamoodi, an Iraqi policeman, was allegedly involved in a plot to attack him and his troops. After being arrested, Hamoodi was interrogated but insisted he was not aware of the planned attack.
<< West said he decided to question the prisoner himself, bringing a number of soldiers with him to the place where Hamoodi was being questioned. The soldiers punched the man to force him to talk.
<< When Hamoodi did not give any information, West said he led him out of the detention facility to a weapons’ cleaning area and asked him to confess, suggesting he would shoot him if he did not talk by the count of five. West said he fired a warning shot and later fired a second shot into the sand near Hamoodi, who still professed his innocence. >>
The MSNBC account presents a very different picture than you get from the items I cited in an earlier post. Unlike the accounts of his fans, West himself said in the segment I just quoted that he threatened to kill the man. This account is also notable in that it does not mention the claim made by Fox News that West forced names from the suspect of others plotting attacks on Americans who were in turn arrested. MSNBC makes it sound like he didn't produce any further names.
Those are important details. If he verbally threatened Hamoodi, it's even harder to see him as an over-wrought soldier who went a little too far in a moment of passion. And if the alleged capture of enemy guerrillas planning an ambush didn't even happen - a dubious enough story if Hamoodi produced the names under torture - that leaves West's defenders with even less ground to stand on.
Steve Gilliard also mentions the case, the first mention I've seen in another antiwar blog. See "Witch Hunt or Valid Court-Martial Case?" (12/03/03).
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