US Soldier Refuses to Serve in =91Illegal Iraq War=92
Agence France Presse
WA****NGTON, 17 May 2008 =97 Matthis Chiroux is the kind of young
American US military recruiters love.
=93I was from a poor, white family from the south, and I did badly in
school,=94 the now 24-year-old told AFP.
=93I was =91filet mignon=92 for recruiters. They started phoning me when I
was in 10th grade, or around 16 years old,=94 he added.
Chiroux joined the US Army straight out of high school nearly six
years ago, and worked his way up from private to sergeant.
He served in Afghanistan, Germany, Japan, and the Philippines and was
due to be deployed next month in Iraq.
On Thursday, he refused to go, saying he considers Iraq an illegal
war.
=93I stand before you today with the strength and clarity and resolve to
declare to the military, my government and the world that this soldier
will not be deploying to Iraq,=94 Chiroux said in the sun-filled rotunda
of a congressional building in Wa****ngton.
=93My decision is based on my desire to no longer continue violating my
core values to sup****t an illegal and unconstitutional occupation... I
refuse to participate in the Iraq occupation,=94 he said, as a dozen
veterans of the five-year-old Iraq war looked on.
Minutes earlier, Chiroux had cried openly as he listened to former
comrades-in-arms testify before members of Congress about the failings
of the Iraq war.
The testimonies were the first before Congress by Iraq veterans who
have turned against the five-year-old war.
Former Army Sgt. Kristofer Goldsmith told a half-dozen US lawmakers
and scores of people, who packed into a small hearing room, of
=93lawless murders, looting and the abuse of countless Iraqis.=94 He spoke
of the psychologically fragile men and women who return from Iraq, to
find little help or treatment offered from official circles.
Goldsmith said he had =93self-medicated=94 for several months to treat the
wounds of the war.
Another soldier told AFP he had to boost his dosage of medication to
treat anxiety and social agoraphobia =97 two of many lingering mental
wounds he carries since his deployments in Iraq =97 before testifying.
Some 300,000 of the 1.6 million US soldiers who have served in Iraq
and Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression
or both, an independent study showed last month.
A group of veterans sitting in the hearing room gazed blankly as their
comrades=92 testimonies shattered the official version that the US
effort in Iraq is succeeding.
Almost to a man, the soldiers who testified denounced serious flaws in
the chain of command in Iraq.
Luis Montalvan, a former army captain, accused high-ranking US
officers of numerous failures in Iraq, including turning a blind eye
to massive fraud on the part of US contractors.
Ex-Marine Jason Lemieux told how a senior officer had altered a re****t
he had written because it slammed US troops of using excessive force,
firing off thousands of rounds of machine gun fire and hundreds of
grenades in the face of a feeble four rounds of enemy fire.
Goldsmith accused US officials of censor****p.
=93Everyone who manages a blog, Facebook or MySpace out of Iraq has to
register every video, picture, do***ent of any event they do on
mission,=94 said Goldsmith after the hearing. =93You=92re almost always
denied before you are allowed to send them home.=94
Officials take =93hard facts and slice them into small pieces to make
them presentable to the secretary of state or the president =97 and all
with the intent of furthering the occupation of Iraq,=94 Goldsmith
added.
Chiroux is one of thousands of US soldiers who have deserted since the
Iraq war began in 2003, according to figures issued last year by the
US Army.
But while many seek refuge in Canada, the young soldier vowed to stay
in the United States to fight =93whatever charges the army levels at
me.=94 The US Army defines a deserter as someone who has been absent
without leave for 30 days.
Chiroux stood fast in his resolve to not re****t for duty on June 15.
=93I cannot deploy to Iraq, carry a weapon and not be part of the
problem,=94 he said.
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