Manning up

Wired.com reports:

Army commanders were warned against sending to Iraq an Army private who is suspected of leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents to the secret-spilling site WikiLeaks.

Pfc. Bradley Manning’s supervisor at Ft. Drum in New York had told his superiors that Manning had discipline problems and had thrown chairs at colleagues and shouted at higher-ranking soldiers,according to a report by McClatchy News service.

But Manning was deployed to Iraq anyway because the Army needed his skills and was short-staffed with intelligence analysts, according to anonymous military officials who spoke with McClatchy. Manning’s superiors believed his discipline problems could be addressed in Iraq, but then they failed to properly monitor him once he got there.

The information was uncovered by a six-member taskforce that was charged with investigating how Manning was trained and whether his supervisors had made mistakes. Their report is due to be delivered to Army Secretary John McHugh by Feb. 1.

The taskforce found that although the military had followed procedures in giving Manning his security clearance, they neglected to re-assess this decision to determine whether he should have retained his clearance once he exhibited disciplinary problems.