Commander: Morale in Manning’s unit suffered

Commander: Morale in Manning’s unit suffered

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — Pfc. Bradley Manning’s former commander in Iraq says morale in his unit suffered after Manning’s fellow soldiers learned that he was suspected of leaking classified documents.

Col. David Miller, who was Manning’s brigade commander in 2010 in Iraq, says other soldiers in the brigade felt the allegations against Manning were like a blemish on an otherwise good record of the work they’d all done in the war.

Miller was testifying today at Fort Meade near Baltimore in the court-martial of Manning on charges of aiding the enemy. Manning admits he leaked hundreds of thousands of documents to the anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks, but says he did it to expose wrongdoing and so Americans would better understand what was going on in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.