GI testifies of threat to him in Iraq slayings

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/03/MNGP7KA6L51.DTL

(08-03) 04:00 PDT Baghdad -- An American soldier testified Wednesday that comrades threatened to kill him if he disclosed their roles in the slaying of three Iraqi detainees in May in northern Iraq.

Pfc. Bradley Mason, 20, said at a military hearing in Tikrit that Staff Sgt. Raymond Girouard threatened him on May 10, the day after the Iraqis were shot dead in a raid on a suspected base of the insurgent group al Qaeda in Iraq near Samarra, about 65 miles north of Baghdad.

"He said that if I say anything, he'd kill me," Mason said, according to a pool report.

Later that day, Mason testified, Pfc. Corey Clagett told him Girouard "won't have to kill me because he'll kill me."

Girouard, Clagett, Spec. William Hunsaker and Spec. Juston Graber all have been charged with murder and other offenses in connection with the killing of the three Iraqis. All but Graber also are charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly threatening to kill Mason. All four are members of the Army's 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I bet this isn't the first time this has happened

How many fellow soldiers were threatened in this way by those who raped the 14 year old and murdered her and her family? Tragic to think that silence led to the horrible deaths of the two soldiers who were kidnapped and killed in revenge.

[Felinity]

2. Military regs?

Anything in the the Code of Conduct that prohibits making threats against your own comrades?

The ramifications of this are hideous.I think when an army turns upon itself, it is doomed.

Not only are our troops living under threat of attack from insurgents, they have to watch out for their fellow soldiers. Nice.

[marmar]

3. Troops threatening to kill each other...A white supremacist infiltration..

Two more legacies of "The War President."