US soldier suicide after objecting to interrogation techniques

One of the first female soldiers killed in Iraq died by her own hand after objecting to interrogation techniques used on prisoners. Army specialist Alyssa Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, AZ, native served with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to an air base prison in Tal-Afar in northwestern Iraq. According to official records, she died on Sept. 15, 2003, from a "non-hostile weapons discharge." She was only the third US woman killed in Iraq so her death drew wide press attention. A "non-hostile weapons discharge" leading to death is not unusual in Iraq, often quite accidental, so this one apparently raised few eyebrows. The Arizona Republic, three days after her death, reported that Army officials "said that a number of possible scenarios are being considered, including Peterson's own weapon discharging, the weapon of another soldier discharging or the accidental shooting of Peterson by an Iraqi civilian." But a longtime radio and newspaper reporter named Kevin Elston, unsatisfied with the public story, decided to probe deeper in 2005. He made "hundreds of phone calls" to the military and couldn't get anywhere, so he filed a Freedom of Information Act request. When the documents of the official investigation of her death arrived, they contained bombshell revelations. Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as "the cage." She was then assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards, and sent to suicide prevention training. "But on the night of Sept. 15, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle," the documents disclose. The Army talked to some of Peterson's colleagues. Asked to summarize their comments, Elston told Editor & Publisher: "The reactions to the suicide were that she was having a difficult time separating her personal feelings from her professional duties. That was the consistent point in the testimonies, that she objected to the interrogation techniques, without describing what those techniques were." Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed.