FORT MEADE, Md. — Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is facing up to 90 years in prison for leaking 700,000 government files to WikiLeaks, apologized on Wednesday for the “unintended consequences of my actions.” He told the judge at his court-martial trial that while he “believed it was going to help people, not hurt people,” he now realized that what he did was wrong.
“I’m sorry that my actions hurt people,” he said. “I’m sorry that they hurt the United States. At the time of my decision, as you know, I was dealing with a lot of issues, issues that are ongoing and continue to affect me” — a reference to matters like his crisis over his gender identity, which he was confronting while on a military deployment in a combat zone.
Throughout the case, open-government activists have celebrated Private Manning’s leaks as a heroic act to be admired and emulated even as his critics have denounced him as a traitor. And earlier in his court-martial, Private Manning’s defense lawyer, David E. Coombs, portrayed his client as a whistle-blower, even if a naïve one. But in the sentencing phase this week, Mr. Coombs has elicited testimony that depicted his client as a smaller, sadder figure — a damaged and confused young man whose decision-making capacity when he decided to leak the files was impaired by extraordinary stress.
In his statement, Private Manning said these personal issues did not justify the things he did.
“Although a considerable difficulty in my life,” he said, “ these issues are not an excuse for my actions. I understood what I was doing and the decisions I made. However, I did not fully appreciate the broader effects of my actions. Those factors are clear to me now.”
Private Manning’s three-minute statement to the judge, Col. Denise R. Lind, was not sworn, so prosecutors could not cross-examine him.
For much of the day, the defense sought to portray Private Manning in human terms, from a difficult childhood — starting with his mother’s heavy drinking while she was pregnant with him — to his mental and emotional deterioration while in Iraq.
Under questioning from Mr. Coombs, Capt. David Moulton, a clinical psychiatrist who extensively examined his client after his arrest, described the stress and isolation that Private Manning was under, and framed his release of the documents to WikiLeaks as the immature, even neurotic act of an idealist who thought he could end all wars.
Under such stress, Captain Moulton said, “his abnormal personality traits became more prominent — he was acting out his grandiose ideation, his difficulties during that post-adolescent period. And ultimately, when he came into contact or had contact with the information which he ended up releasing, his decision-making capacity at that point was influenced by the stress of his situation, for sure.”
He also said Private Manning exhibited traits of fetal alcohol syndrome and some of the social difficulties associated with Asperger’s syndrome, along with narcissistic tendencies like grandiosity and haughtiness which became heightened under duress.
Along with Captain Moulton, Private Manning’s older sister, Casey Major, and aunt, Debra Van Alstyne, testified that he had been underweight since birth because his mother drank and smoked during her pregnancy.
His sister, who is 11 years older, described a difficult childhood in which their alcoholic mother was largely dysfunctional and so Ms. Major largely cared for Private Manning from his birth until he was around 7, when she had a bitter dispute with their father and left home. Later their father left and their mother became suicidal. At one point Ms. Major teared up slightly while discussing photographs of their childhood...
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