How to lose this war

Do you want a surefire recipe to lose the Iraq war?

It’s easy, really.

Just allow the Pentagon to move forward with plans to court martial Lt. Col. Allen B. West.

The day that happens is the day U.S. popular support for this war goes south. The day that happens is the day our fighting men realize this war – like Vietnam – is going to be micromanaged by the politicians in Washington who know little or nothing about the split-second judgments that need to be made when you’re under fire. The day that happens is the day America loses some of its moral authority in conducting this foreign war and descends into the kind of schizophrenic self-consciousness that cost it clear-cut military and political victories in the past.

West is the U.S. Army officer – a 20-year veteran scheduled for retirement last weekend – who interrogated an Iraqi prisoner by firing a pistol near his head, thus saving the lives of his own troops and discovering the details of an impending attack.

West isn’t getting a medal for this conduct – which would be appropriate in my opinion. Instead, he was told to resign his commission prior to retirement and lose his retirement benefits or face a court martial.

West told the Washington Times in an e-mail he was desperate to gain information to protect his soldiers who face almost daily attacks in their effort to impose security in Tikrit, where Saddam Hussein loyalists are fighting back.

We saw the results of one of those attacks last weekend when a U.S. helicopter was shot down killing 16 troops headed for leave.

“I have never denied what happened and have always been brutally honest,” West said. “I accept responsibility for the episode, but my intent was to scare this individual and keep my soldiers out of a potential ambush. There were no further attacks from that town. We further apprehended two other conspirators (a third fled town) and found out one of the conspirators was the father of a man we had detained for his Saddam Fedayeen affiliation.”

West said the prisoner “and his accomplices were a threat to our soldiers and the method was not right, but why should I lose 20 years of service or be forced into prison for protecting my men?”

If prosecutors present enough evidence of wrongdoing at a hearing in Iraq next week, West could be court martialed and sentenced up to eight years in prison.

The staff judge advocate for the 4th Infantry Division has charged him under the Uniform Military Code with communicating a threat and aggravated assault. The Aug. 21 incident came amid fears of an impending sniper attack on U.S. forces and reports of an assassination plot aimed at West, an artillery battalion commander.

In a previous e-mail to the Times, West said while interrogating the Iraqi policeman he “fired into the weapons clearing barrel outside the facility alone, and the next time I did it while having his head close to the barrel. I stood in between the firing and his person. I admit that what I did was not right, but it was done with the concern of the safety of my soldiers and myself.”

After informing his superior officer of the incident, West said he heard nothing more until a broader inquiry was launched by Army chiefs.

In other words, West’s superiors in the field understood what he did and why. They understood the necessity of unconventional tactics in an unconventional war. But the politicians still don’t get it.

You can change that by demanding the Pentagon drop this case against West.

They don’t have to give him a medal, which he deserves. But they need to be forced to get off this good man’s back.