The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday asked the Army to postpone discharging a Green Beret until he can prepare an appeal with military counsel and suggested existing U.S. military policies regarding reporting human rights abuses are not sufficient.
“Congress cannot substitute our judgment for that of the military chain of command,” Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) wrote in a letter to Army Secretary John McHugh. “We are, however, responsible for ensuring that the processes in place are fair and adequate to the demands of an Army at war.”
The discharge case has become the face of allegations that the U.S. military encouraged troops to ignore when their Afghan allies sexually abused children and that troops were punished when they did report the abuse.
Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland is due to be dismissed from the Army on Nov. 1 for his role in beating up an Afghan police official who allegedly had a boy tied to his bed as a sex slave.
Some congressmen have previously called for the Martland to be reinstated.
Thornberry and his committee have spoken with Martland, as well as officials from U.S. Central Command, the office of the Defense Secretary, the Joint Staff and the Army.
In his letter, Thornberry said he found procedural errors in due process and so recommended the Army give Martland time to appeal.
Thornberry also suggested the discharge was more the result of budget cuts than concerns about Martland’s actions since Martland was allowed to stay in the Army for four years after the incident.
Still, he said, he was not convinced the United States has adequate policies to address how soldiers should report human rights abuses.
“Military personnel must have a viable and responsive reporting system that will have real impact when confronted with human rights abuses in Afghanistan and elsewhere,” Thornberry wrote. “I am not satisfied that the policies in place are robust enough, or that our men and women in uniform find them reliable.”
Gen. John Campbell, the commander in charge of the U.S.-led NATO coalition in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Service Committee on Tuesday the United States has had a policy since at least 2011 that human rights abuses should be reported up the chain of command.
Even before 2011, he said, there was no policy against reporting abuses.
Campbell declined to comment specifically on cases from before he took command, which includes Martland’s 2011 incident, saying he has not investigated them.
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said it appears policy wasn’t followed.
“If the policy changed in 2011, then arguably the cases from 2011, 2012, if true, were handled incorrectly,” she said. “If those individuals did report this and were told to mind your own business, then obviously their commanders were not following policy.”