Prosecutor: Manning’s actions aided enemies - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Prosecutor: Manning’s actions aided enemies

Prosecutors argued in closing arguments Thursday that Army Pfc. Bradley Manning broke the nation’s trust, using his training to breach Army networks, harvest reams of sensitive documents and give them to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

But Manning’s lawyers argued his superiors failed to address his struggles with gender-identity disorder and ignored his violent outbursts. Defense attorneys also said it is unfair to charge Manning with security breaches when his own unit did not abide by its own security procedures.

“It is the military’s lack of response that smacks in the face of justice,” said Manning’s civilian defense attorney, David Coombs. The failure of Manning’s noncommissioned officers was “a critical breakdown in standards,” Coombs said.

On the final day of Manning’s Article 32 hearing, the government methodically reviewed computer forensics evidence and testimony offered throughout, saying Manning downloaded more than 700,000 sensitive or classified documents, provided much of it to WikiLeaks and that the information wound up in the hands of the enemy.

Capt. Ashden Fein, the lead prosecutor for the government, said Manning, a trusted all-source intelligence analyst with the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, “used that training to betray that trust and indiscriminately harvest more than 700,000 documents … in a time of war and while deployed.”

Manning, 24, faces life in prison for more than 20 charges. In the biggest national security leak in U.S. history, Manning is accused of raiding supposedly secure networks for more than 250,000 State Department cables, 490,000 military reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, 700 reports on Guantanamo detainees, and contact information for thousands of service members in Iraq from the Global Address List.

The list also includes hundreds of files related to a 2009 U.S. airstrike in Gerani, Afghanistan, that saw dozens of civilians killed, and raw video from an air-to-ground assault in which two journalists were killed, released by WikiLeaks under the title “Collateral Murder.”

Manning is accused of downloading sensitive materials using his classified computers at work in a secure facility on Forward Operating Base Hammer, Iraq, burned the files on CDs, transferred the files to his personal MacBook Pro laptop and then sent them to WikiLeaks.

Fein argued Manning, on five separate days in December 2009, accessed an Army intelligence report warning that known enemies would exploit information published by WikiLeaks but passed the report and other information along to the website.

During his arguments, Fein played a video posted on the Internet in June in which U.S.-born al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn urges followers to use information available on the Internet. The WikiLeaks website is shown in the background repeatedly.

Fein said al-Qaida, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and a third “classified enemy” had possession of the war logs found on WikiLeaks. He cited classified computer forensic analyses.

“He had actual knowledge that … foreign adversaries like al-Qaida and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula would use WikiLeaks to their advantage,” Fein said of Manning.

Fein argued Manning used a WikiLeaks “Most Wanted List” as his “guiding light,” pursuing detainee records from Joint Task Force Guantanamo’s server days after WikiLeaks posted a message that it wanted such records.

Manning and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange also allegedly discussed transmittal of the records via Internet chats. The prosecution displayed chat logs from Manning’s laptop, purportedly between Manning, whose handle was “nobody” and “Nathaniel Frank,” believed to be Assange.

“I’m throwing everything I got on JTF-GTMO at you now,” Manning typed.

“Okay, great,” Assange replied.

Presenting the defense’s summation, Coombs called the intelligence section of Manning’s brigade a “lawless unit when it came to information assurance” for allowing soldiers to load personal music CDs onto their workplace computers, and play music, movies and video games stored on a brigade hard drive meant for classified data.

The defense team says Manning was nearly paralyzed by internal struggles over his belief that he was a woman trapped in a man’s body. They say his chain of command failed to suspend his access to classified data despite clear signs of emotional distress, including his statement to a supervisor expressing his distress.

In court, Coombs read Manning’s April 7, 2010, letter to the supervisor, in which Manning described himself as “haunted.” Manning’s struggle with gender identity has damaged family ties, cost him jobs and was making it difficult to sleep and hold conversations. “My entire life feels like a bad dream without end,” the letter states.

Coombs also argued the release of the classified information didn’t do real harm, and said the government needs “a reality check” for bringing such serious charges against Manning.

“If anything, it’s helped,” he said.

Prosecutors noted that the material published on WikiLeaks is still considered classified.

Manning’s supporters say the information published by the website exposed war crimes and triggered the wave of pro-democracy uprisings in the Middle East.

It could be weeks before Manning learns whether he will be court-martialed.

The presiding officer, Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, will have until Jan. 16 to recommend whether Manning should stand trial.

Military officials say Almanza’s timeline could be extended, and there is no deadline for a final decision by Maj. Gen. Michael Linnington, commander of the Military District of Washington.

The standard of proof is whether reasonable grounds exist to believe Manning committed the alleged offenses.

Coombs argued that all charges against Manning be merged into only three specifications, which would mean Manning would face a maximum of 30 years. Under current charges, Manning would face life for aiding the enemy and a maximum of 180 years.

Manning’s lawyers built a three-pronged defense: Manning was a troubled man who shouldn’t have had access to classified material, let alone served in Iraq; security at his workplace was weak; and the published material did little or no harm to national security.

The prosecution’s three main witnesses were, like Manning, computer experts.

Adrian Lamo, a one-time convicted hacker, testified he gave investigators records of his May 2010 online chats with a correspondent using the screen name “bradass87” who bragged about engineering “possibly the largest data spillage in American history” from his Army post in Baghdad.

Two computer forensic examiners said they found evidence on Manning’s workplace and personal computers that he had downloaded battlefield reports from the military’s supposedly secure network and emailed them to WikiLeaks.

The defense called just two witnesses — a sergeant who witnessed one of Manning’s fits of rage and a captain who found it odd that intelligence analysts were allowed to load personal music CDs onto computers linked to the classified data network. Manning allegedly downloaded the diplomatic cables onto a rewritable CD labeled “Lady Gaga” while lip-synching the performer’s song “Telephone.”

Throughout the proceedings, Manning remained outwardly calm while witnesses talked about his emotional problems, his difficulties as a gay soldier during the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” era, and his violent outbursts while serving in the United States and then in Iraq from late 2009 to mid-2010.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.