Did You Know - There's Corruption in Iraq

From Editor and Publisher...

Two years ago this week, shortly after noon, Iraq time, Col. Ted Westhusing took out a Barretta and put a bullet in his brain in his trailer at an Army camp near Baghdad airport. When he died, he was the highest-ranking American officer to lose his life in the Iraq war.

In a suicide note addressed to his commanders, Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil and Lt. Gen. David Petraeus (and also sharply critical of them) Westhusing wrote: “I cannot support a msn [mission] that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied — no more.”

Now documents from the investigation of Westhusing’s death, and the charges in his suicide note, are available online.

E&P Editor Greg Mitchell has covered the Westhusing case since the autumn of 2005, when a portrait of Westhusing by T. Christian Miller appeared in the Los Angeles Times. Miller revealed that Westhusing, 44, had been deeply troubled by abuses carried out by American contractors in Iraq, including allegations that they had witnessed or even participated in the murder of Iraqis.