'WikiLeaks suspect was mentally unfit for Iraq duty' - Pentagon

Bradley Manning. Photo / AP

The United States Army private accused of downloading classified materials while serving as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad and passing them to WikiLeaks should never have been deployed to Iraq in the first place because he was mentally unfit, a soon-to-be-released Pentagon report will conclude.

Bradley Manning, 23, who is facing eight charges of breaking federal law in connection with the WikiLeaks affair, was serving at Fort Drum in New York when mental health specialists advised against his deployment to Iraq. But his immediate superiors ignored the advice, according to an internal army investigation. The report, which will be delivered this month to US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, also faults officers at the intelligence analysis facility in Baghdad for failing to properly supervise the soldier and to maintain a proper degree of security to protect secrets.

Some details of the findings were leaked to the Washington Post.

"There were serious leadership failures within the unit chain of command and gross negligence in the supervision of ... Manning in Iraq," one army official said.

The revelations coincide with a new chorus of complaints that the soldier is being held in almost inhumane conditions at a Marine base in Virginia pending his trial. This week, Amnesty International called on the British Government to pressure Washington to improve the conditions of his confinement. Manning should be considered British, Amnesty said, because he has a Welsh mother. "We would also like to see Foreign Office officials visiting him just as they would any other British person detained overseas," said Kate Allen, the British director of Amnesty.

The army probe into the security breach is separate from the criminal investigation that is being headed by the US Justice Department. So far, no charges have been filed against Manning or anyone else in relation to the latest burst of leaked diplomatic cables. The eight charges he faces already are linked to earlier materials disseminated by WikiLeaks.

First to seize upon the findings will be Manning's defence team led by David Coombs, his private lawyer. Reports of the army's findings seem clearly to demonstrate "the failure of the army to take care of the soldier", Coombs said.

- INDEPENDENT