Wikeleaks: Gay Manning Sent Pictures Of Himself "Dressed As A Woman" To Superiors (Then Whined About Treatment?)
December 18th, 2011
Wikeleaks: Gay Manning Sent Pictures Of Himself "Dressed As A Woman" To Superiors (Then Whined About Treatment?)
Published on December 18th, 2011 @ 12:47:48 pm , using 635 words
UK Telegraph
By Raf Sanchez, Forte Meade, Maryland
Bradley Manning told his military superiors that he was emotionally unstable and sent them a picture of himself dressed as a woman but his warnings were never passed up a chaotic chain-of-command, a court heard on Friday.
The 24-year-old private, who is accused of the largest intelligence leak in American history, was also involved in a series of violent incidents following his deployment to Iraq in October 2009 yet was given continued access to the secret network from which prosecutors say he stole hundreds of thousands of files and then passed to WikiLeaks.
Testimony from the officer who commanded the intelligence unit where Pte Manning was posted described an overstretched and undisciplined outfit where soldiers regularly played music and watched movies on the same computers used to access classified intelligence.
Pte Manning's civilian defence lawyer, David Coombs, told the court martial hearing that his client had sent a distressed email to his immediate supervisor, Master Sergeant Paul Watkins. "He told [Watkins] he was suffering a gender identity disorder and in that email even had a picture of himself dressed as a woman."
In the email Pte Manning warned that his ability to work as an analyst of attacks by Shia militants in Iraq was being impaired by his emotional problems.
Yet rather than pass the message to his superior officers, Master Sergeant Watkins tried to counsel the young soldier himself and only alerted the intelligence unit's commander, Captain Steven Lim, of the incident after Pte Manning had been arrested, the court heard.
As he took the stand during the second day of the Article 32 hearing, the military's equivalent of a pretrial court appearance, Captain Lim was questioned about two alleged incidents that took place within weeks of Pte Manning's deployment to Iraq in October 2009.
On December 12, the defendant apparently became enraged during a meeting and knocked over a chair while screaming at more senior soldiers.
Then on December 20, he allegedly flipped over a table during a counselling session, destroying the computer monitor that was sitting on top of it. Comrades had restrain him because they believed he was "going for a weapon rack", Mr Coombs told the court.
But Captain Lim said he was not made aware of the details of either incident and was "shocked" when he received an admonishing letter from an Army general, questioning why action was not taken over the warning signs.
The captain was also forced to admit that the Sensitive Compartmentalised Information Facility (SCIF) where Pte Manning worked as an analyst, or "35-Fox", and had direct access to classified files, was a place of lax regulations.
Despite specific rules against it, soldiers would regularly bring in their own CDs containing music, games and computer programmes, Captain Lim said. It was on these discs that Pte Manning allegedly downloaded the secret files.
When asked why stricture controls were not enforced, the captain said: "We can't watch ever single person 24 hours a day, we were just too busy to do that."
He was also questioned about why the night shift, on which Pte Manning was at one point assigned, was overseen by an enlisted soldier rather than a more senior non-commissioned officer (NCO). "We didn't have any NCOs left to put on the night shift," he said.
Asked to describe Pte Manning's work he said the the soldier had excelled at statistical analysis but was a poor public speaker and struggled to convey his points to superior officers.
Around 15 soldiers of varying ranks are thought to have been disciplined for their actions or inactions in the months leading up to the arrest.
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