FORT MEADE, Md. – Several months before he started providing highly classified data to WikiLeaks, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning erupted violently against one of his superiors in Iraq, pounding his fists, flipping a table with government computers and trying to grab a firearm from a weapons rack until he was forcibly restrained, an Army officer testified Tuesday.
The late-night outburst inside a secret Army intelligence compound southeast of Baghdad in December 2009 came as the intelligence analyst was growing increasingly distressed about what he was learning about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soon after, while on holiday leave in Washington, he decided to begin leaking hundreds of thousands of classified war logs, diplomatic cables and enemy combatant assessments to the anti-secrecy website.
Defense lawyers say the incident is crucial to their effort to persuade a military judge not to impose the maximum 90-year sentence on Manning, who was convicted in a court-martial of espionage and other charges for the illegal disclosures. They are trying to show that the Oklahoma-born soldier was nearing an emotional breakdown over what he viewed as military atrocities and government lies in the two conflicts.
Manning's lawyers also contend the incident proves military commanders knew he was mentally unstable but did not remove him from Iraq or dismiss him from the Army.
McClatchy-Tribune NEWS SERVICE
