WikiLeaks jailing claims Clinton aide

The public face of United States' foreign policy has been forced out of his job after picking a fight with the White House.

P.J. Crowley criticised the Obama Administration's treatment of Private Bradley Manning, the young US soldier suspected of handing a treasure trove of classified military and diplomatic cables to the file-sharing website WikiLeaks.

The veteran civil servant, who worked as the chief spokesman for Hillary Clinton's State Department, stepped down amid controversy over a speech last week in which he described the handling of Manning as "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid".

His departure lays bare the growing debate in Washington over how best to treat Manning, who is being kept in solitary confinement at a marine barracks in Virginia. He is confined to a 1.8m-by-3.6m cell for 23 hours a day, is never allowed outdoors and is forced to strip naked each night.

Speaking to a small audience at an academic seminar in Boston on Saturday, Crowley was asked what he thought of "torturing a prisoner in a military brig".

While he stressed that Manning was "in the right place", Crowley added the over-zealous nature of his incarceration could undermine a prosecution.

A BBC journalist attending the event passed the quotes on to her employers after Crowley confirmed they were on the record, forcing an embarrassed President Barack Obama to use his weekly press conference on Sunday to stress that he was confident that the nature of Manning's confinement was "appropriate and meeting our basic standards".

Behind the scenes, however, a row continued to fester. Adding spice was the appearance of a disagreement on the issue between Obama and his former presidential rival, Clinton, who is believed to take the view that any infringement of Manning's civil liberties will hurt the US' image overseas.

Manning and his lawyers have meanwhile publicly argued that, since he poses only a minimum escape risk, his high-security detention has been designed to punish him for the alleged transgressions before he has been put on trial.

Against that backdrop, Crowley's departure was perhaps inevitable. CNN reported that he had "abruptly resigned" after "pressure from White House officials because of controversial comments".

CNN claimed that the President's office was "furious" about the bad publicity the affair had brought them.

Since moving to the State Department in 2009, Crowley has taken a public approach to his task of outlining the Administration's position on foreign policy issues, using Twitter prolifically to issue sometimes strongly worded pronouncements on US policy.

An Obama aide, Mike Hammer, is expected to take his job.

- INDEPENDENT