Subject: Re: U.S. Soldier Says Iraq War is Morally Wrong

Fort Lewis soldier: Iraq war is morally wrong

Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Associated Press and KING5.com Staff Reports

TACOMA, Wash. - An Army lieutenant based at Fort Lewis has such
grave objections to the war in Iraq, he's refusing to deploy.

In a pre-recorded statement played at news conference
Wednesday, 1st Lt. Ehren Watada said:

"It is my duty as a commissioned officer of the United States
Army to speak out against grave injustices. My moral and legal
obligation is to the Constitution and not those who would issue
unlawful orders."

Watada scheduled the news conference near Fort Lewis, where he
is stationed, but was barred from attending during his duty
hours.

His statement continued: "It is my conclusion as an officer of
the armed forces that the war in Iraq is not only morally wrong
but a horrible breach of American law.

"Although I have tried to resign out of protest, I am forced to
participate in a war that is manifestly illegal. As the order
to take part in an illegal act is ultimately unlawful as well,
I must as an officer of honor and integrity refuse that order."

He said the war violates the democratic system of checks and
balances and usurps international treaties and conventions.

"The wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of the Iraqi people
with only limited accountability is not only a terrible moral
injustice but a contradiction to the Army's own Law of Land
Warfare," Watada said.

In a letter to his command in January, Watada said he had
reservations about the Iraq war and felt he could not
participate, his lawyer, Eric A. Seitz, told The Associated
Press in a telephone interview Tuesday from his office in
Honolulu.

A couple of months later, at the Army's suggestion, Watada
resubmitted his request to resign, Seitz said. He was told last
month that his request had been denied. It would be Watada's
first deployment to Iraq.

Joseph W. Hitt, a civilian spokesman at Fort Lewis, about 40
miles south of Seattle, said Watada is a member of the 3rd
Brigade, 2 nd Infantry Division, the Army's first Stryker
Brigade Combat Team. The unit held a deployment ceremony Friday
and is set to begin leaving later this month for a second
mission in Iraq.

Hitt said only that the Army is aware of Watada's plans. "We
have nothing to say about it because nothing has happened, and
we're not going to speculate on anything," Hitt said.

Watada, the son of Bob Watada, former executive director of
Hawaii's campaign spending commission, enlisted in 2003 after
graduation from Hawaii Pacific University. He reported for boot
camp that June and began officer candidate school two months
later.

Watada's commission requires that he serve as an active-duty
Army officer for three years ending this Dec. 3, Seitz said.

"By his refusal to participate in the ongoing war, Lt. Watada
joins a growing number of high-ranking military officers, West
Point graduates and current and former members of the armed
services who have expressed their opposition to the actions of
the United States in Iraq," Seitz said in a statement released
Tuesday.

Watada could be court martialed if he refuses to serve as
ordered, unless the Army allows him to resign his commission or
assigns him to duties that are not directly connected to the
war, Seitz said.

Watada did not apply for conscientious objector status.

"In order to qualify as a conscientious objector you have to be
opposed to war in any form, and he is not. He's just opposed to
this war," Seitz told the AP.

Paul Boyce, a spokesman in the Army's national public affairs
office, said Watada is "not the first officer, not the first
enlisted, nor the first soldier" to refuse deployment to Iraq.
An Army fact sheet dated Sept. 21, 2005, the most recent one
available, said conscientious objector applications had been
approved 87 and 101 denied since January 2003.

Army regulations define conscientious objection as a "firm,
fixed and sincere objection to participation in war in any form
or the bearing of arms, because of religious training and
belief."