Fort Carson – A Fort Carson soldier accused of smothering an Iraqi general with a sleeping bag testified Thursday that he did not murder the general.
Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer said he put a sleeping bag over Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Mowhoush’s head only to create claustrophobic conditions, raise his fear and make him talk.
“I felt it was safely employed,” Welshofer said.
Welshofer took the witness stand after two medical examiners – one for the prosecution and one for the defense – gave different causes for Mowhoush’s death Nov. 26, 2003, in the Blacksmith Hotel, where Iraqi detainees were held near Qaim.
Army Maj. Mike Smith, a forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Mowhoush, said the general died of asphyxiation and the manner of death was homicide. Cyril Wecht, a noted medical examiner from Allegheny County, Pa., testified that Mowhoush had an enlarged heart and died of heart failure brought on by the stress of being held by U.S. forces, being beaten by the CIA two days earlier and being interrogated in a sleeping bag. He said the manner of death was either accidental or undetermined.
The prosecution contends that the 6-foot-2 Welshofer, who weighed 185 pounds at the time, put the sleeping bag over Mowhoush’s head, tied him with an electrical cord, sat on his chest and covered his mouth during the interrogation.
Welshofer said he “straddled” the general. He admitted that he periodically covered the general’s mouth but only for a few seconds at a time during the 20 minutes that Mowhoush was in the sleeping bag.
The prosecution rested its case Thursday, the fourth day of the trial.
Welshofer, who joined the Army in 1986, said he received “zero” training to prepare for the environment he encountered in Iraq. The training he did receive, he said, hailed from the Cold War and was “based on an enemy from 60 years ago.”
It was not until August 2003 – five months after he arrived with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq – that he began to receive some guidance about the methods interrogators could use to elicit information from Iraqi detainees, he said.
That month, he received an e-mail from Capt. William Ponce, who worked in the office of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the military commander in Iraq.
Welshofer said that according to the memo, “as far as they knew, there were no rules of engagement for interrogators. They were still struggling with the definition of a detainee.”
At the time, Welshofer said, detainees were called “unprivileged belligerents.”
It wasn’t until he received an unsigned Sept. 10, 2003, memo – which bore Sanchez’s stamp – that he began to receive guidance on what techniques could be used to elicit information from detainees, he said.
“According to the memo, stress positions are authorized,” Welshofer said.
Welshofer said he interpreted “stress positions” as approval to create claustrophobic environments that create fear to get detainees to talk. He said he got approval from his company commander, Maj. Jessica Voss, to use the sleeping-bag technique.
Voss testified this week that she authorized use of the sleeping bag but did not approve sitting on a detainee’s chest or covering his mouth.
Mowhoush was considered a “high priority” target. At the time, U.S. soldiers were still looking for Saddam Hussein and were facing increasingly violent attacks from insurgents.
Welshofer said he never saw two other memos that followed the one dated Sept. 10, including a Sept. 14, 2003, memo from Sanchez that authorized stress positions and an Oct. 12, 2003, memo that prescribed what techniques were allowed and did not mention “stress positions.”
He disputed a claim Wednesday by a CIA agent that he had seen the Oct. 12 memo and admitted violating it. Welshofer also said fellow soldier Gerold Pratt, who testified Wednesday, was in error when he said another detainee had lost consciousness while in the sleeping bag.
