ABFFE Book of the Month: Dissent: Voices of Conscience by Colonel (Ret.) Ann Wright and Susan Dixon

Interview with the Authors

ABFFE: As a member of the U.S. diplomatic corps in Mongolia, you (Col. Wright) were the third U.S. federal employee to resign in protest of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.  Previously, during your service, were there any times when you spoke out against government actions?

ANN WRIGHT: Yes, during the 29 years I was in the U.S. Army/U.S. Army Reserves and the 16 years I was in the U.S. diplomatic corps, it was my duty as a government employee to speak and write internally within the government about my concerns on many policies.   I will give just a couple of examples.  When I was in the U.S. Army, I challenged the U.S. Army’s Direct Combat Probability Coding on Army units, a coding that eliminated women from serving in units in which they had served for years because of a flawed analysis on where units would be on a battlefield.  I felt the coding was a mechanism created by some senior level men in the Army who were fearful that women were advancing too quickly in the military and who wanted to prevent women from being given responsibilities that would help them get promoted.  I publicly challenged the coding and the Army ended up having to re-do its study that had resulted in the elimination of jobs for women – and ultimately, positions in the Army were opened to women.

Additionally, when I was in Somalia, I was a U.S. diplomat seconded to the United Nations as the head of the Justice Division, one of the four major departments of the UN mission in Somalia.  In that position, I wrote a legal opinion that strongly criticized a U.S. military operation in which U.S. helicopters fired missiles into a building where elders of various tribes were meeting to try to end the war between the United Nations forces and a warlord named Aideed.  The senior leadership of the United Nations mission (a retired four star U.S. Navy admiral) and the U.S. mission in Somalia attempted to undercut the message of the opinion, but the rank and file of United Nations employees greatly appreciated an American diplomat taking her own military to task on its operation that resulted in the deaths of 60 senior Somalia tribal leaders and two international journalists. The legal opinion was leaked to the Washington Post and caused quite a stir in Washington, as criticism of U.S. military operations by a U.S. government employee was rare.

ABFFE: Do you (Col. Wright) think your resignation influenced others to speak out, both within the military and outside it? 

ANN WRIGHT: I have been told by many people I have met in the past four years that the example of a senior military officer and diplomat resigning in opposition to the decision to invade and occupy Iraq, an oil-rich, Arab, Muslim country that had not attacked the United States, gave them courage to speak out.  I think equally important has been my being very visible in public protests in the streets and in Congress.  Fellow citizens have responded very positively to an Army Colonel in her BDU jacket walking in protest against the war or speaking up in Congressional hearings.

ABFFE: What made you decide to write Dissent?

ANN WRIGHT: After I resigned, I had a lot of time on my hands.  I, like most everyone, was reading everything I could find on the war on Iraq and what was happening in Afghanistan.  I began finding references to others who were speaking out or standing up to hold the administration accountable for its actions, many of which were stretching legality, if not being outright criminal.

ABFFE: In a post-9/11 world, why are whistleblowers in particular so important?

SUSAN DIXON: Since 9/11, the Bush administration has imposed a climate of government secrecy and intimidation, withholding information even from Congress, in defiance of the Constitution.  Questioning administration claims or policies was labeled unpatriotic and even treasonous.  Our government and mainstream media fueled the myths that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th attacks and possessed weapons of mass destruction.

When our country’s leaders manipulate facts and withhold essential information, who else but someone with inside knowledge can reveal the truth?  We have to rely on whistleblowers to reveal illegal actions/policies and abuses of power.

Much of what we know about the run-up to the Iraq war has come from whistleblowers.  It’s also because of whistleblowers that Americans have learned about the prison abuse at Abu Ghraib, warrantless wiretapping in the U.S., etc.  As Daniel Ellsberg has said, whistleblowing is not unpatriotic; it is an expression of overarching loyalty to the Constitution.

Democracy requires an informed public.  When we do not get the facts we need in order to understand what our government is doing, we cannot make informed decisions about political events or cast the votes we want to in elections, or hold our leaders accountable.

ABFFE: What role does the press have in defending whistleblowers' free speech rights?

SUSAN DIXON: The press has many roles in defending the free speech rights of whistleblowers.  One of the most important roles the press can play is to make sure the public is informed of what a whistleblower reveals.  It doesn’t help for a whistleblower to speak out if no one hears what he or she has to say.  If a whistleblower can’t get the information to the public, it becomes much more difficult to correct the situation.

The press can make the information so well-known that the administration cannot ignore it.  As soon as CBS’s 60 Minutes broadcast some of the photos from Abu Ghraib, the Bush Administration was forced to deal with the scandal.

A whistleblower is, by definition, revealing illegal or unconstitutional actions, making it very dangerous for their identities to be known.  There are laws in our country designed to protect whistleblowers, but employees of intelligence-gathering agencies including the CIA, NSA, and FBI are exempted because they handle classified information.  Therefore, the press has an even bigger responsibility to protect the identity of these whistleblowers.

ABFFE: Whistleblowers often face repercussions for speaking up.  Can you tell us about Army Specialist Joe Darby?

SUSAN DIXON: Army Specialist Joe Darby was a military policeman at Abu Ghraib prison.  In January 2004, Charles Graner gave Darby a CD containing the infamous photos of naked prisoners stacked in a pyramid, soldiers posing over the dead body of a prisoner, prisoners wearing women’s underwear on their heads, and dogs being used to scare prisoners.

Darby followed his conscience and, once he had been promised anonymity, he turned over a copy of the CD to the Criminal Investigative Division of his command.  An investigation into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib began.

Then, on April 29, 2004, CBS’s 60 Minutes broadcast some of the photos, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was called to testify before Congress.  During his May 7, 2004 testimony, Rumsfeld outed Darby on national TV as the one who had leaked the photos.  Darby was eating dinner in a mess hall in Iraq when he heard Rumsfeld say his name.  He felt his life was in danger.  He was flown out of Iraq the next day.

His family met him at Dover Air Force Base, but because of the death threats against him, Darby was told he couldn’t safely return home.  The Army provided six bodyguards for Joe Darby at the military base he was transferred to.  After his discharge from the military, he and his wife went into federal protective custody to begin life in a new place.

A month after being outed, Darby received a letter from Rumsfeld who apologized for outing him, saying he had “no idea” that Darby had asked to stay anonymous.

To read about other Book of the Month selections, click here.