Officer avoids court-martial

Lt. Col. Allen B. West was fined $5,000 by his commanding officer yesterday, closing a case in which the Army charged him with assault for firing his gun to frighten an Iraqi detainee into disclosing a planned ambush.

Neal Puckett, Col. West’s civilian attorney, said the officer plans to return to Fort Hood, Texas, where he expects to be granted a full-benefits retirement this spring after a 20-year Army career.

Col. West appeared before Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, at his Tikrit headquarters. Gen. Odierno fined him one-half month’s pay for two months, or roughly $5,000, Mr. Puckett said. The division’s lawyers sought a court-martial, but a hearing officer recommended Article 15, or nonjudicial punishment.

The case has been closely watched by Army officers and military veterans. Col. West’s stated motives were to protect himself and his soldiers in the notorious Sunni Triangle, where Americans face daily attacks from Saddam Hussein loyalists. But he admitted bending the rules and the Army chose to file charges rather than handling the case quietly.

With the case closed, civilian defense attorney Puckett harshly criticized the Army.

“The problem with today’s Army is that the top brass seem to have become paranoid about making common sense decisions without the ‘advice of counsel.’” said Mr. Puckett, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. “Those counsel usually have no idea what it means to command troops in combat.”

Mr. Puckett said that early on in the case, the 4th Infantry’s staff judge advocate offered a deal: If Col. West would resign short of qualifying for retirement benefits, the Army would not seek a court-martial. Mr. Puckett rejected the offer.

“Had true Army leaders been allowed to handle this without benefit of counsel, I believe Al West would still be in command, would have been privately congratulated, and told to stay out of the interrogation business in the future,” Mr. Puckett said.

“That would have been true Army leadership. Those type of leaders are still in the Army. It’s just that they have been subverted by job-justifying lawyers who seek to play a larger role in the command.”

The case had a compelling story line.

Col. West, a product of a poor family in Atlanta, graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1983 and joined the Army, an institution that was actively recruiting blacks.

He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and won command of an artillery battalion before deploying to Iraq from Fort Hood. His future seemed bright. Perhaps a brigade command was in his future.

While trying to bring democracy to a small town near Tikrit, he received intelligence information that an Iraqi policeman was involved in a plot to kill the officer and his soldiers. When the detained policeman refused to talk, Col. West took him outside and fired two shots near his head. The frightened Iraqi then gave up information on the planned assassination, including those involved.

Col. West informed superiors of his action, which violated Army rules for interrogation. An investigative hearing officer, Lt. Col. Jimmy Davis, recommended this week that Col. West face administrative punishment at what is called an Article 15 hearing. Gen. Odierno agreed.

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