Associated Press | November 16, 2006
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. - A Soldier who pleaded guilty to conspiring to rape a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and kill her family described how he was approached by a fellow Soldier with the plan to carry out the attack.

Spc. James P. Barker, one of four U.S. Soldiers accused in the March 12 rape and killings, pleaded guilty Wednesday and agreed to testify against the others. He will avoid the death penalty, said his attorney, David Sheldon.

Barker told military judge Lt. Col. Richard Anderson that 21-year-old former Army private Steve Green approached him with a plan to attack the family as they drank whiskey purchased from Iraqi soldiers.

"He brought it up to me and asked me what I thought about it," Barker said. "By the time we started changing clothes, it was more or less a nonverbal agreement that we were going to go along with what we were discussing."

The plea agreement calls for Barker to serve at least life in prison. Anderson was expected to decide in a hearing Thursday whether Barker should be allowed to seek parole.

Barker, 23, described changing clothes, then climbing through backyards as the five Soldiers left the checkpoint they had been manning to carry out the attack.

"We went through a chain link fence on the back of the property that had been cut on a previous patrol," he said.

The killings in Mahmoudiya, a village about 20 miles south of Baghdad, were among the worst in a series of alleged attacks on civilians and other abuses by military personnel in Iraq.

Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, 24, and Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, 22, members of the 101st Airborne Division along with Barker, have also been charged in the case. Cortez has deferred entering a plea and Spielman will be arraigned in December. Pfc. Bryan L. Howard, 19, also deferred entering a plea at his arraignment in October.

Green pleaded not guilty last week to civilian charges including murder and sexual assault. He was discharged from the Army for a "personality disorder" before the allegations became known, and prosecutors have yet to say if they will pursue the death penalty against him.

Barker described in vivid detail how he raped Abeer Qassim al-Janabi with Cortez and Green before Green killed the girl, her younger sister and parents.

"Cortez pushed her to the ground. I went towards the top of her and kind of held her hands down while Cortez proceeded to lift her dress up," he said. "Around that time I heard shots coming from a room next door."

The defendants are accused of burning the girl's body to conceal the crime.

Howard, Cortez and Spielman could face the death penalty if convicted. Cortez and Spielman are both being held in confinement and Howard is restricted to post.

Barker did not name Spielman and Howard as participants in the rape and murders but said they were at the house when the assault took place and had come knowing what the others intended to do.

At one point, the judge asked Barker why he had decided with the other Soldiers to commit the rape and murders.

"I hated Iraqis, your honor," Barker said. "They can smile at you, then shoot you in your face without even thinking about it."

The Soldiers were stationed in a violent area known as the "Triangle of Death" because of frequent attacks on Soldiers patrolling the roads. Soldiers in Barker's unit were often asked to spend weeks manning remote checkpoints, where several from the unit died.

Sheldon told reporters during a news conference following the hearing that Barker took responsibility for his actions, but he also said the U.S. Army was to blame for the way the war in Iraq was being fought.

"The United States Army did not ... put enough Soldiers on the checkpoints," Sheldon said. "It's very important that the public knows that this type of thing can happen again if the Army doesn't take measures to put enough troops on the front line in the war against terrorism, the war in Iraq."





http://www.military.com/NewsContent/...l?ESRC=army.nl

I have a feeling we will see more of this...