Officer that shot near terrorist cleared

Keeping with the spirit of following up on previous discussions - the U.S. Army will not court-martial Lt. Col. Allen B. West, who fired his gun twice near the head of an uncooperative Iraqi terrorist to intimidate him into providing information that foiled a planned ambush of West's men.

West will be allowed to retire later this year after 20 years of service, with his full pension.

West's lawyer, Neal Puckett, is a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, who served as a military judge. He made several sharp comments to the Washington Times following the disposition of his client's case.

"The problem with today's Army is that the top brass seem to have become paranoid about making common-sense decisions without the "˜advice of counsel,'" said Puckett. "Those counsel usually have no idea what it means to command troops in combat. . . . Had true Army leaders been allowed to handle this without benefit of counsel, I believe Al West would still be in command, would have been privately congratulated, and told to stay out of the interrogation business in the future. That would have been true Army leadership. Those types of leaders are still in the Army. It's just that they have been subverted by job-justifying lawyers who seek to play a larger role in the command."

Relatively good news, but this case surely exposed some real failings in the decision making of the brass at the Pentagon.