20 Marzo 2012
Washington -- The military will conduct a separate investigation into the circumstances surrounding Staff Sgt. Robert Bales' assignment to a combat outpost in southern Afghanistan, the top commander for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan said Tuesday.
The administrative review, which is in addition to a criminal investigation, will be conducted by U.S. Forces Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen told the House Armed Services Committee.
The investigation will consider how Bales, who is accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians in a shooting rampage March 11, was assigned and why he was assigned to the combat outpost, Allen said.
"It will look at the command relationships associated with his involvement in that combat outpost," Allen added.
A defense official told CNN Tuesday that the military has not yet started the administrative probe.
"It is in preparation to start soon. That is by design not to conflict with the criminal investigation," said the official, who was not authorized to speak on record and asked not to be named.
The investigation will examine other administrative, training and command channels "to see if anything can be attributed to the incident," the official said.
The official confirmed that this separate investigation will go beyond Bales' time in Afghanistan and will look at deployment decisions and training he received prior to arriving in that country.
On Monday, Bales' attorney told CBS News the soldier wasn't drunk at the time of the shootings, but Bales doesn't remember what happened and is in shock.
The network reported that Bales met with three of his lawyers, including lead attorney John Henry Browne, for more than seven hours.
"He has an early memory of that evening, and he has a later memory of that evening, but he doesn't have a memory of in between," Browne said about the night of the shootings.
Contrary to some reports, Bales was not intoxicated, the attorney told CBS.
"He's in shock. He's fixated on the troops left on the ground, and what they're accusing him of, and how that might have negative ramifications on his friends and compatriots," Browne said.
The attorney said off camera that he will not pursue an insanity defense, but one of diminished capacity, CBS reported.
Rebecca Steed, a spokeswoman for the U.S. military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where the suspect is being held, confirmed the meeting between Browne and Bales earlier in the day but declined to provide details.
Repeated calls to the attorney after the Monday meeting were not returned.
Bales stands accused in the shooting rampage in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province, allegations that have strained already tense U.S.-Afghan relations and intensified a debate about whether to pull American troops ahead of their planned 2014 withdrawal.
After the shootings in two neighboring villages just outside a U.S. outpost in the Panjwai district, Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded troops withdraw from villages and return to their bases. He said relations between the two countries were "at the end of their rope."
Afghans are insisting that the suspect be returned to Afghanistan to face trial, even as villagers and lawmakers question the U.S. military's account of what happened.
U.S. officials have alleged Bales left his outpost and single-handedly carried out the killings in the villages, leaving nine children, three women and four men dead.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has promised Karzai a full investigation and said the United States will bring the shooter to justice.
The trial will be held in the United States, though the location has not been decided, a U.S. Forces Afghanistan legal expert told reporters Sunday. "We will develop charges hopefully within the next week," said the expert, who would not speculate on what they might be.
Discussions are under way for the United States to compensate relatives of the victims, the expert added.
The government of Afghanistan will not be present in the court, the expert said in response to a question, but some Afghans may be taken to the United States for Bales' trial.
"If he is brought to trial, it is possible that Afghan witnesses and victims would be brought over," the expert said. "But it's very important for me to emphasize that we are very early in this process and we want to make sure that we do not make any speculations, which could undermine the United States' ability to bring justice here."
Accounts from the military, Bales' family, friends and neighbors paint a portrait of a man who bore scars from wounds he received during three previous combat tours to Iraq but remained passionately committed to serving his country, and deployed to Afghanistan in January.
Bales suffered a traumatic brain injury during a roadside bomb explosion and lost part of his foot in separate tours in Iraq, his attorney has said.(Adam Levine e Chris Lawrence per "CNN")
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