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A Journey That Ended in Anguish
Col. Ted Westhusing, a military ethicist who volunteered to go to
Iraq, was upset by what he saw. His apparent suicide raises
questions.
By T. Christian Miller
Times Staff Writer
11/27/05 "Los Angeles Times" -- -- "War is the hardest place to make
moral judgments." - Col. Ted Westhusing, Journal of Military Ethics
WASHINGTON — One hot, dusty day in June, Col. Ted Westhusing was
found dead in a trailer at a military base near the Baghdad airport,
a single gunshot wound to the head.
The Army would conclude that he committed suicide with his service
pistol. At the time, he was the highest-ranking officer to die in
Iraq.
The Army closed its case. But the questions surrounding Westhusing's
death continue.
Westhusing, 44, was no ordinary officer. He was one of the Army's
leading scholars of military ethics, a full professor at West Point
who volunteered to serve in Iraq to be able to better teach his
students. He had a doctorate in philosophy; his dissertation was an
extended meditation on the meaning of honor.
So it was only natural that Westhusing acted when he learned of
possible corruption by U.S. contractors in Iraq. A few weeks before
he died, Westhusing received an anonymous complaint that a private
security company he oversaw had cheated the U.S. government and
committed human rights violations. Westhusing confronted the
contractor and reported the concerns to superiors, who launched an
investigation.
In e-mails to his family, Westhusing seemed especially upset by one
conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as
duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq,
where the U.S. had come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once
done by the military.
His death stunned all who knew him. Colleagues and commanders
wondered whether they had missed signs of depression. He had been
losing weight and not sleeping well. But only a day before his
death, Westhusing won praise from a senior officer for his progress
in training Iraqi police.
His friends and family struggle with the idea that Westhusing could
have killed himself. He was a loving father and husband and a devout
Catholic. He was an extraordinary intellect and had mastered ancient
Greek and Italian. He had less than a month before his return home.
It seemed impossible that anything could crush the spirit of a man
with such a powerful sense of right and wrong.
On the Internet and in conversations with one another, Westhusing's
family and friends have questioned the military investigation.
A note found in his trailer seemed to offer clues. Written in what
the Army determined was his handwriting, the colonel appeared to be
struggling with a final question.
How is honor possible in a war like the one in Iraq?
Even at Jenks High School in suburban Tulsa, one of the biggest in
Oklahoma, Westhusing stood out. He was starting point guard for the
Trojans, a team that made a strong run for the state basketball
championship his senior year. He was a National Merit Scholarship
finalist. He was an officer in a fellowship of Christian athletes.
Joe Holladay, who coached Westhusing before going on to become
assistant coach of the University of North Carolina Tarheels,
recalled Westhusing showing up at the gym at 7 a.m. to get in 100
extra practice shots.
"There was never a question of how hard he played or how much effort
he put into something," Holladay said. "Whatever he did, he did
well. He was the cream of the crop."
When Westhusing entered West Point in 1979, the tradition-bound
institution was just emerging from a cheating scandal that had
shamed the Army. Restoring honor to the nation's preeminent
incubator for Army leadership was the focus of the day.
Cadets are taught to value duty, honor and country, and are drilled
in West Point's strict moral code: A cadet will not lie, cheat or
steal — or tolerate those who do.
Westhusing embraced it. He was selected as honor captain for the
entire academy his senior year. Col. Tim Trainor, a classmate and
currently a West Point professor, said Westhusing was strict but
sympathetic to cadets' problems. He remembered him as
"introspective."
Westhusing graduated third in his class in 1983 and became an
infantry platoon leader. He received special forces training, served
in Italy, South Korea and Honduras, and eventually became division
operations officer for the 82nd Airborne, based at Ft. Bragg, N.C.
He loved commanding soldiers. But he remained drawn to intellectual
pursuits.
In 2000, Westhusing enrolled in Emory University's doctoral
philosophy program. The idea was to return to West Point to teach
future leaders.
He immediately stood out on the leafy Atlanta campus. Married with
children, he was surrounded by young, single students. He was a
deeply faithful Christian in a graduate program of professional
skeptics.
Plunged into academia, Westhusing held fast to his military ties.
Students and professors recalled him jogging up steep hills in
combat boots and camouflage, his rucksack full, to stay in shape. He
wrote a paper challenging an essay that questioned the morality of
patriotism.
"He was as straight an arrow as you would possibly find," said Aaron
Fichtelberg, a fellow student and now a professor at the University
of Delaware. "He seemed unshakable."
In his 352-page dissertation, Westhusing discussed the ethics of
war, focusing on examples of military honor from Confederate Gen.
Robert E. Lee to the Israeli army. It is a dense, searching and
sometimes personal effort to define what, exactly, constitutes
virtuous conduct in the context of the modern U.S. military.
"Born to be a warrior, I desire these answers not just for
philosophical reasons, but for self-knowledge," he wrote in the
opening pages.
As planned, Westhusing returned to teach philosophy and English at
West Point as a full professor with a guaranteed lifetime
assignment. He settled into life on campus with his wife, Michelle,
and their three young children.
But amid the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he told friends that he
felt experience in Iraq would help him in teaching cadets. In the
fall of 2004, he volunteered for duty.
"He wanted to serve, he wanted to use his skills, maybe he wanted
some glory," recalled Nick Fotion, his advisor at Emory. "He wanted
to go."
In January, Westhusing began work on what the Pentagon considered
the most important mission in Iraq: training Iraqi forces to take
over security duties from U.S. troops.
Westhusing's task was to oversee a private security company,
Virginia-based USIS, which had contracts worth $79 million to train
a corps of Iraqi police to conduct special operations.
In March, Gen. David Petraeus, commanding officer of the Iraqi
training mission, praised Westhusing's performance, saying he had
exceeded "lofty expectations."
"Thanks much, sir, but we can do much better and will," Westhusing
wrote back, according to a copy of the Army investigation of his
death that was obtained by The Times.
In April, his mood seemed to have darkened. He worried over delays
in training one of the police battalions.
Then, in May, Westhusing received an anonymous four-page letter that
contained detailed allegations of wrongdoing by USIS.
The writer accused USIS of deliberately shorting the government on
the number of trainers to increase its profit margin. More
seriously, the writer detailed two incidents in which USIS
contractors allegedly had witnessed or participated in the killing
of Iraqis.
A USIS contractor accompanied Iraqi police trainees during the
assault on Fallouja last November and later boasted about the number
of insurgents he had killed, the letter says. Private security
contractors are not allowed to conduct offensive operations.
In a second incident, the letter says, a USIS employee saw Iraqi
police trainees kill two innocent Iraqi civilians, then covered it
up. A USIS manager "did not want it reported because he thought it
would put his contract at risk."
Westhusing reported the allegations to his superiors but told one of
them, Gen. Joseph Fil, that he believed USIS was complying with the
terms of its contract.
U.S. officials investigated and found "no contractual violations,"
an Army spokesman said. Bill Winter, a USIS spokesman, said the
investigation "found these allegations to be unfounded."
However, several U.S. officials said inquiries on USIS were ongoing.
One U.S. military official, who, like others, requested anonymity
because of the sensitivity of the case, said the inquiries had
turned up problems, but nothing to support the more serious charges
of human rights violations.
"As is typical, there may be a wisp of truth in each of the
allegations," the official said.
The letter shook Westhusing, who felt personally implicated by
accusations that he was too friendly with USIS management, according
to an e-mail in the report.
"This is a mess … dunno what I will do with this," he wrote home to
his family May 18.
The colonel began to complain to colleagues about "his dislike of
the contractors," who, he said, "were paid too much money by the
government," according to one captain.
"The meetings [with contractors] were never easy and always
contentious. The contracts were in dispute and always under
discussion," an Army Corps of Engineers official told investigators.
By June, some of Westhusing's colleagues had begun to worry about
his health. They later told investigators that he had lost weight
and begun fidgeting, sometimes staring off into space. He seemed
withdrawn, they said.
His family was also becoming worried. He described feeling alone and
abandoned. He sent home brief, cryptic e-mails, including one that
said, "[I] didn't think I'd make it last night." He talked of
resigning his command.
Westhusing brushed aside entreaties for details, writing that he
would say more when he returned home. The family responded with an
outpouring of e-mails expressing love and support.
His wife recalled a phone conversation that chilled her two weeks
before his death.
"I heard something in his voice," she told investigators, according
to a transcript of the interview. "In Ted's voice, there was fear.
He did not like the nighttime and being alone."
Westhusing's father, Keith, said the family did not want to comment
for this article.
On June 4, Westhusing left his office in the U.S.-controlled Green
Zone of Baghdad to view a demonstration of Iraqi police preparedness
at Camp Dublin, the USIS headquarters at the airport. He gave a
briefing that impressed Petraeus and a visiting scholar. He stayed
overnight at the USIS camp.
That night in his office, a USIS secretary would later tell
investigators, she watched Westhusing take out his 9-millimeter
pistol and "play" with it, repeatedly unholstering the weapon.
At a meeting the next morning to discuss construction delays, he
seemed agitated. He stewed over demands for tighter vetting of
police candidates, worried that it would slow the mission. He seemed
upset over funding shortfalls.
Uncharacteristically, he lashed out at the contractors in
attendance, according to the Army Corps official. In three months,
the official had never seen Westhusing upset.
"He was sick of money-grubbing contractors," the official recounted.
Westhusing said that "he had not come over to Iraq for this."
The meeting broke up shortly before lunch. About 1 p.m., a USIS
manager went looking for Westhusing because he was scheduled for a
ride back to the Green Zone. After getting no answer, the manager
returned about 15 minutes later. Another USIS employee peeked
through a window. He saw Westhusing lying on the floor in a pool of
blood.
The manager rushed into the trailer and tried to revive Westhusing.
The manager told investigators that he picked up the pistol at
Westhusing's feet and tossed it onto the bed.
"I knew people would show up," that manager said later in attempting
to explain why he had handled the weapon. "With 30 years from
military and law enforcement training, I did not want the weapon to
get bumped and go off."
After a three-month inquiry, investigators declared Westhusing's
death a suicide. A test showed gunpowder residue on his hands. A
shell casing in the room bore markings indicating it had been fired
from his service revolver.
Then there was the note.
Investigators found it lying on Westhusing's bed. The handwriting
matched his.
The first part of the four-page letter lashes out at Petraeus and
Fil. Both men later told investigators that they had not criticized
Westhusing or heard negative comments from him. An Army review
undertaken after Westhusing's death was complimentary of the command
climate under the two men, a U.S. military official said.
Most of the letter is a wrenching account of a struggle for honor in
a strange land.
"I cannot support a msn [mission] that leads to corruption, human
rights abuse and liars. I am sullied," it says. "I came to serve
honorably and feel dishonored.
"Death before being dishonored any more."
A psychologist reviewed Westhusing's e-mails and interviewed
colleagues. She concluded that the anonymous letter had been the
"most difficult and probably most painful stressor."
She said that Westhusing had placed too much pressure on himself to
succeed and that he was unusually rigid in his thinking. Westhusing
struggled with the idea that monetary values could outweigh moral
ones in war. This, she said, was a flaw.
"Despite his intelligence, his ability to grasp the idea that profit
is an important goal for people working in the private sector was
surprisingly limited," wrote Lt. Col. Lisa Breitenbach. "He could
not shift his mind-set from the military notion of completing a
mission irrespective of cost, nor could he change his belief that
doing the right thing because it was the right thing to do should be
the sole motivator for businesses."
One military officer said he felt Westhusing had trouble reconciling
his ideals with Iraq's reality. Iraq "isn't a black-and-white
place," the officer said. "There's a lot of gray."
Fil and Petraeus, Westhusing's commanding officers, declined to
comment on the investigation, but they praised him. He was "an
extremely bright, highly competent, completely professional and
exceedingly hard-working officer. His death was truly tragic and was
a tremendous blow," Petraeus said.
Westhusing's family and friends are troubled that he died at Camp
Dublin, where he was without a bodyguard, surrounded by the same
contractors he suspected of wrongdoing. They wonder why the manager
who discovered Westhusing's body and picked up his weapon was not
tested for gunpowder residue.
Mostly, they wonder how Col. Ted Westhusing — father, husband, son
and expert on doing right — could have found himself in a place so
dark that he saw no light.
"He's the last person who would commit suicide," said Fichtelberg,
his graduate school colleague. "He couldn't have done it. He's just
too damn stubborn."
Westhusing's body was flown back to Dover Air Force Base in
Delaware. Waiting to receive it were his family and a close friend
from West Point, a lieutenant colonel.
In the military report, the unidentified colonel told investigators
that he had turned to Michelle, Westhusing's wife, and asked what
happened.
She answered:
"Iraq."
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
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