Bradley E. Manning
USABiography of Bradley Manning
Bradley E. Manning was born in 1987 in Crescent, Oklahoma, USA. His father, Brian Manning, was in the military, and his mother, Susan, was an immigrant from Wales who moved to the USA in 1979. After his parents divorced, Manning moved with his mother to Wales in 2001 and attended school in Haverfordwest. Some sources suggest that Manning did not complete his education in the UK and returned to the USA, where he briefly worked at a pizzeria. He then lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Chicago, and Potomac, Maryland, where he began attending a technical school.
Known for his passion for computers, Manning was described as highly irritable and introverted. He did not hide his homosexuality. In 2007, Manning, who had always dreamed of becoming a secret agent, joined the US Army and served in intelligence as a military analyst under a four-year contract. He received training in Arizona and by 2010 had achieved the rank of specialist. Manning served at the "Hammer" base in Iraq, in the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division of the US Army.
In May 2010, Manning was demoted to private first class after getting into a fight with a fellow soldier. It was later revealed that during his service, Manning was hesitant to express his political views. He was not only against the discrimination of individuals with non-traditional sexual orientations in the military, but also critical of the war in Iraq and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Manning also complained about being constantly ignored during his service.
In April 2010, a major scandal erupted in the US when WikiLeaks published a classified video of a helicopter attack on Reuters journalists and their escorts in the outskirts of Baghdad in 2007, which was mistakenly identified as terrorists by American military personnel. Eighteen people, including two journalists, were killed. On May 21, 2010, Manning confessed in an online chat with former hacker Adrian Lamo that he was the one who leaked the video to WikiLeaks, along with 260,000 other classified diplomatic cables. Lamo revealed this information to the US authorities, leading to Manning's arrest on May 29. He was initially held in custody at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, and later transferred to a military prison in Virginia in July.
According to the investigation, Manning obtained the video of the journalist shooting while stationed at the "Hammer" base. He gained access to the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET), a classified network of the US Department of Defense and the State Department, by installing software on a computer with access. Among the files he downloaded were reports of January 2010 negotiations between American diplomats and representatives of the Icelandic government, which he passed on to WikiLeaks. He also transferred 50 other documents. Although he accessed 150,000 diplomatic messages, there was no evidence that he shared them with anyone.
In early July 2010, Manning was charged with keeping classified information on an unsecured personal computer and transmitting it to third parties. In his conversation with Lamo, Manning noted that the US Army's classified information was poorly protected. Reports from The Daily Telegraph indicated that Manning's actions may have been influenced by personal issues, as he wrote on Facebook about his argument with his partner. WikiLeaks did not confirm that Manning was their source. Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, stated that the website collects materials in a way that keeps the identity of informants unknown to editors, and they had sources within the US military prior to Manning's service. Assange offered to help Manning with legal support and hired three lawyers, but they ultimately declined to represent him.
In late July 2010, WikiLeaks published 77,000 classified field reports on the US war in Afghanistan, containing information about operations, civilian casualties, and the names of American informants, posing a threat to their lives. The site promised to release approximately 15,000 more documents later. This led to speculation that Manning may have been responsible for the largest leak since the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War, which revealed that President Lyndon Johnson's administration had sought to escalate the conflict. It was expected that a military court (Article 32 Hearing) would determine whether there was enough evidence to proceed with Manning's case. The trial was tentatively scheduled to begin in the second half of August 2010 but could have been postponed.
The media presented varying assessments of Manning's actions. Some experts believed that his actions would seriously harm the morale of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, while others praised him for exposing US military crimes in these hotspots.
