ARMY investigators in Washington have concluded Iraq war commanders ignored recommendations that Bradley Manning, the United States Army Private accused of leaking classified documents, was not fit for deployment, FOXNews.com reported Wednesday.
An internal army probe found Pte Manning, 23 – the alleged source of the WikiLeaks document scandal – had violent outbursts while at Fort Drum in New York that included throwing chairs at colleagues and shouting at superiors.
“There were people who said he shouldn’t deploy,” a military official told FOXNews.com on the condition of anonymity. But because of the intense need for intelligence specialists, Pte Manning was brought to Iraq anyway.
Pte Manning would later be accused of committing the largest breach of secret information in US history.
The official said the army investigation focuses on three of Pte Manning’s superiors who may be held accountable for failing to properly respond to his problems.
Perhaps most importantly, the investigation finds that Pte Manning’s supervisors failed to secure the Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF) where he allegedly downloaded the files from classified military computers.
Before Pte Manning was arrested in June 2010, he confided in notorious computer hacker Adrian Lamo, telling him about the lax security surrounding those computer systems.
Pte Manning has been held in a maximum-security detention facility at Quantico Marine base in Virginia since July.
In addition to the army investigation, the Department of Justice is conducting a separate criminal probe.
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