Whistleblower apologizes over Wikileaks data breach
’I’M SORRY MY ACTIONS HURT THE U.S.’
FORT MEADE, MD.— Bradley Manning, who is facing up to 90 years in prison for leaking 700,000 government files to WikiLeaks, apologized Wednesday for the “unintended consequences of my actions.” He told the judge at his courtmartial trial that while he “believed it was going to help people, not hurt people,” he now realized he was wrong.
“I’m sorry that my actions hurt people,” he said. “I’m sorry that they hurt the United States. At the time of my decision, as you know, I was dealing with a lot of issues, issues that are ongoing and continue to affect me” — a reference to matters like his crisis over his gender identity, which he was confronting while on a military deployment in a combat zone.
Throughout the case, open-government activists have celebrated Manning’s leaking as a heroic act, even as his critics have denounced him as a traitor. But in the sentencing phase this week, his defence lawyer, David Coombs, has elicited testimony that depicted his client as a smaller, sadder figure — a damaged and confused young man whose decision-making capacity when he decided to leak the files was impaired by extraordinary stresses.
In his statement, Manning said these personal issues did not justify the things he did.
“Although a considerable difficulty in my life,” he said, “these issues are not an excuse for my actions. I understood what I was doing and the decisions I made. However, I did not fully appreciate the broader effects of my actions. Those factors are clear to me now.”
Manning’s brief statement to the judge, Col. Denise Lind, was not sworn, so prosecutors could not cross-examine him.
Capt. David Moulton, a clinical psychiatrist who extensively examined Manning after his arrest, described the stress and isolation that Manning was under, and framed his release of the documents to WikiLeaks as the immature, even neurotic, act of an idealist who thought he could end all wars.
Under such stress, Moulton said, “his abnormal personality traits became more prominent — he was acting out his grandiose ideation, his difficulties during that post-adolescent period. And ultimately, when he came into contact or had contact with the information which he ended up releasing, his decision-making capacity at that point was influenced by the stress of his situation, for sure.”
He also said Manning exhibited traits of fetal alcohol syndrome and some of the social difficulties associated with Asperger’s syndrome.
Manning’s older sister, Casey Major, and aunt, Debra Van Alstyne, testified that he had been underweight since birth because his mother drank and smoked during his pregnancy.
His sister, who is 11 years older, described a difficult childhood in which their alcoholic mother was largely dysfunctional and so Major largely cared for him from his birth until he was around 7, when she had a bitter dispute with their father and left home.
Capt. Michael Worsley, a clinical psychologist who treated Manning in Iraq, testified that he was guarded at first in their therapy sessions, before he eventually revealed he was struggling with his gender identity — at the time it was a still against military law to be openly gay.
“You put him in this hypermasculine environment, if you will, with little support and few coping skills — the pressure would have been difficult to say the least,” he said. “It would have been incredible.”
The court martial will reconvene Friday afternoon; prosecutors may make a rebuttal case. Lind could announce a sentence sometime next week.