At an open hearing on February 28, Pfc. Bradley Manning said that he was responsible for providing U.S. government documents to the WikiLeaks website, including a large collection of U.S. State Department cables, a video of a brutal U.S. Army helicopter attack in Baghdad, and other records.
“The decisions that I made to send documents and information to the WLO [WikiLeaks Organization] and website were my own decisions, and I take full responsibility for my actions,” he told the military court.
The Army belatedly released a redacted copy of Pfc. Manning’s statement yesterday. [Correction: The redacted statement was released by Manning’s defense counsel, David E. Coombs.] (An unofficial version had been privately transcribed by Alexa O’Brien soon after the hearing.)
The Freedom of the Press Foundation obtained an audio recording of the statement, which it released online.
Manning eloquently expressed his motivations for the unauthorized disclosures, including the need to expose corruption and deception in the conduct of diplomacy and military operations. He described the efforts he made to weigh the possible damage that might result from disclosure, and the judgment he made that release of the records was the appropriate step.
But he did not acknowledge that any other individuals had been placed at risk by his actions, nor did he take responsibility for any consequences they might suffer. Taliban leaders said in 2010 that they were scrutinizing the Afghanistan war records published by WikiLeaks and that they would “punish” persons listed in the records who were found to have cooperated with the U.S. military.
The Colorado Future Systems Policy Sprint is FAS’s first state-level policy sprint. Policy sprints are key incubators for “policy entrepreneurship,” FAS’s method for equipping individuals with strong ideas with the technical assistance to develop policy.
Colorado already has the building blocks in place to modernize its agricultural industry – they just have to put it to use. With state recognition, a San Luis Valley pilot could improve local capacity in just three years.
As we head into the fall and the end of the 119th session, we face significant S&T issues of concern. Here is what we’re tracking.
Colorado faces a projected shortage of more than 2,400 physicians by 2030, alongside the growing shortage nationwide, particularly in rural and certain underserved urban communities.