West Point Professor & Ethicist Commits Suicide Over War Profiteering in Iraq

War for profit, like prisons for profit is a troubling thing to see in practice. There should be an investigation of the revolving door between Bush campaign contributors and the lucrative tax payer contracts handed out in Iraq. Another problem of course is the privitization of torture for profit.

His suicide reminds me of how the CIA stopped recruiting at Notre Dame in the 70"s, as they did not want agents who had a grounding in ethics as they tended to become defectors once they learned what was going on.
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WAR IN IRAQ
Officer's death leaves questions
Suicide finding troubles family of colonel who was working on a corruption case


By T. CHRISTIAN MILLER
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON - One hot, dusty day last June, Col. Ted Westhusing was found dead in a trailer at a military base near the Baghdad, Iraq, airport, a single gunshot wound to the head.

The Army concluded that he committed suicide with his service pistol. At the time, he was the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq.

The Army closed its case. But the questions continue.

Westhusing, 44, was no ordinary officer. He was one of the Army's leading scholars of military ethics, a professor at West Point who volunteered to serve in Iraq to teach his students better. He had a doctorate in philosophy; his dissertation was an extended meditation on the meaning of honor.

So it was only natural that Westhusing acted when he learned of possible corruption by U.S. contractors in Iraq. A few weeks before he died, Westhusing received an anonymous complaint that a private security company he oversaw had cheated the U.S. government and committed human rights violations. Westhusing confronted the contractor and reported the concerns to superiors, who launched an investigation.

In e-mail to his family, Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. has come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military.

His death stunned all who knew him. Colleagues and commanders wondered whether they had missed signs of depression.

His friends and family struggle with the idea that Westhusing could have killed himself. He was a loving father and husband and a devout Catholic. He was an extraordinary intellect, having mastered ancient Greek and Italian. He had less than a month before his return home.

On the Internet and in conversations with one another, Westhusing's family and friends have questioned the military investigation.

A note found in his trailer seemed to offer clues. Written in what the Army determined was his handwriting, the colonel appeared to be struggling with a final question: How is honor possible in a war like the one in Iraq?


In the top tier
Westhusing graduated third in his West Point class in 1983 and became an infantry platoon leader. He received special forces training, served in Italy, South Korea and Honduras, and eventually became division operations officer for the 82nd Airborne, based at Fort Bragg, N.C.

He loved commanding soldiers. But he remained drawn to intellectual pursuits.

In 2000, Westhusing enrolled in Emory University's doctoral philosophy program. He returned to teach philosophy and English with a guaranteed lifetime assignment. He settled into life on campus with his wife, Michelle, and their three young children.

But amid the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he told friends he felt experience in Iraq would help him in teaching cadets. In fall 2004, he volunteered for duty.

In January, Westhusing began work on what the Pentagon considered the most important mission in Iraq: training Iraqi forces to take over security duties from U.S. troops.

Westhusing's task was to oversee a private security company, Virginia-based USIS, which had contracts worth $79 million to train an elite corps of Iraqi police to conduct special operations.

In May, Westhusing received an anonymous four-page letter that contained detailed allegations of wrongdoing by USIS.

The writer accused USIS of deliberately shorting the government on the number of trainers to increase profit margins. More serious, the writer detailed two incidents in which USIS contractors allegedly had witnessed or participated in the killing of Iraqis.

Westhusing reported the allegations to his superiors but told one of them, Gen. Joseph Fil, that he believed USIS was complying with the terms of its contract.

U.S. officials investigated and found "no contractual violations," an Army spokesman said.

But several U.S. officials said inquiries into USIS were ongoing. One U.S. military official, who, like others, requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said the inquiries had turned up problems.

The letter shook Westhusing, who felt personally implicated by accusations that he was too friendly with USIS management, according to an e-mail in the report.

"This is a mess ... dunno what I will do with this," he wrote to his family May 18.

The colonel began to speak to colleagues about "his dislike of the contractors," who, he believed, "were paid too much money by the government," according to one captain.


Others began worrying
By June, some of Westhusing's colleagues had begun to worry about his health. His family was becoming worried. He described feeling alone and abandoned. He sent home brief, cryptic e-mail, including one that said, "(I) didn't think I'd make it last night." He talked of resigning his command.

His wife recalled a phone conversation two weeks before his death that chilled her.

"I heard something in his voice," she told investigators, according to a transcript of the interview. "In Ted's voice, there was fear. He did not like the nighttime and being alone."

On June 4, Westhusing left his office in the Green Zone of Baghdad to view a demonstration of Iraqi police preparedness at Camp Dublin, the USIS headquarters at the airport.

At a meeting the next morning to discuss construction delays, he seemed agitated. He stewed over demands for tighter vetting of police candidates, worried it would slow the mission. He seemed upset over funding shortfalls.

Uncharacteristically, he lashed out at contractors in attendance, according to an Army Corps official. "He was sick of money-grubbing contractors," the official recounted. Westhusing said that "he had not come over to Iraq for this."

The meeting broke up shortly before lunch. About 1 p.m., a USIS manager went looking for Westhusing because he was scheduled for a ride back to the Green Zone. After getting no answer, the manager returned about 15 minutes later. Another USIS employee saw through a window Westhusing on the floor in a pool of blood.

The manager rushed into the trailer and tried to revive Westhusing. The manager told investigators that he picked up the pistol at Westhusing's feet and tossed it on the bed.

"I knew people would show up," that manager said to explain why he handled the gun. "With 30 years from military and law enforcement training, I did not want the weapon to get bumped and go off."


The official ruling
After a three-month inquiry, investigators ruled Westhusing's death a suicide. A test showed gunpowder residue on his hands. A casing bore markings indicating it had been fired from his service revolver.

Then there was the note on Westhusing's bed. The handwriting matched his.

The first part of the four-page letter lashes out at Gen. David Petraeus, commanding officer of the Iraqi training mission, and Fil. Both men later told investigators that they had not criticized Westhusing or heard negative comments from him. An Army review undertaken after Westhusing's death was complimentary of the command climate under the two men, a military official said.

Most of the letter is a wrenching account of a struggle for honor in a strange land.

"I cannot support a msn (mission) that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars. I am sullied," it says. "I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored.

"Death before being dishonored any more."


Under so much pressure
A psychologist reviewed Westhusing's e-mail and interviewed colleagues. She said that Westhusing had placed too much pressure on himself to succeed and that he was unusually rigid in his thinking. Westhusing struggled with the idea that monetary values could outweigh moral ones in war.

Westhusing's family and friends are troubled that he died at Camp Dublin, where he was without a bodyguard, surrounded by the same contractors he suspected of wrongdoing. They wonder why the manager who discovered Westhusing's body and picked up his weapon was not himself tested for gunpowder residue.

Mostly, they wonder how Col. Ted Westhusing — father, husband, son and expert in doing right — could have found himself in a place so dark that he saw no light.