Army: Robert Bales' medical records to remain classified

The Army’s official public accounting of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales’ massacre of unarmed Afghan civilians will not settle lingering questions about whether the military failed to catch signs of his instability or whether he had access to a paranoia-inducing antimalarial drug.

The Army rejected a Freedom of Information Act request from The News Tribune seeking Bales’ medical records, which would include descriptions of any medication he was taking and whether he had been flagged for mental health issues prior to the last of his four deployments with a Joint Base Lewis-McChord Stryker brigade.

The Army cited a privacy exemption in the Freedom of Information Act in denying The News Tribune’s request. The denial from the Army Medical Command was dated on July 14.

The military generally does not release information about an individual’s medical history, but the newspaper had sought the records in the interest of assessing whether the Army had missed opportunities to divert him from the Afghanistan deployment.

Bales in August 2013 was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after he pleaded guilty to twice slipping out of his combat outpost in the morning hours of March 11, 2012 to slaughter 16 unarmed civilians in their homes.

He could not explain his motives and his attorneys did not attempt to defend him in court by citing post-traumatic stress disorder or the misuse of medication given to him by the Army.

Nonetheless, two medical questions have circulated about Bales since he was arrested on the morning of the massacre in Kandahar Province’s Panjwai District.

One centered on whether he should have deployed at all. Bales, a father of two who spent his entire Army career at JBLM, participated in health screenings before and after his deployments.

It’s not clear if those tests raised any concerns about his mental health.

The other frequently raised question about Bales asked whether he took an antimalarial drug called mefloquine that has been associated with paranoia and hallucinations.

That question gained attention in July 2013 when former Army physician Dr. Remington Nevin obtained a U.S. Food and Drug Administration “adverse event” notification indicating that a soldier who was taking the medication had murdered “17 Afghanis” in March 2012.

The notification was an apparent reference to Bales, who initially was charged with the deaths of 17 Afghans. An unnamed pharmacist wrote the notification, which Nevin obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The Army started phasing out mefloquine in 2009, limiting its use to specific situations instead of handing it to the hundreds of thousands of troops deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan at that time. It remained popular among Special Forces units.

Last year, the FDA issued new guidance for the use of the drug, requiring that its packaging contain a warning about mefloquine’s possible long-term neurological side effects.

Bales’ lead defense attorney, John Henry Browne, has said the soldier used mefloquine on at least one previous deployment to Iraq. Browne did not have official documents suggesting Bales used mefloquine on his 2012 deployment and Browne did not raise questions about the medication at Bales’ court-martial.

Bales and thousands of other soldiers in JBLM’s 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division received a different antimalarial drug called doxycycline when they deployed to Afghanistan in late 2011 and early 2012.

The News Tribune in June obtained several thousand pages from the Army’s criminal investigation into Bales’ killings. It included references to Bales’ medical records, but redacted almost all of his medical information.

The criminal report included descriptions of different kinds of pills Army police seized in Bales’ living quarters. None of them were labeled as mefloquine, though some of them were kept in unidentified bottles.

The News Tribune shared the report with Nevin, who concluded that Bales “almost certainly” had not taken the doxycycline he received prior to his deployment. The pill is meant to be taken once a day. Bales had more than a year’s worth of the medicine in his living quarters four months into his one-year deployment.

At the time of the killings, Bales was stationed at a Special Forces outpost called Village Stability Platform Belambay.

A noncommissioned officer from the 7th Special Forces Group gave Bales’ a bottle of steroids that he admitted taking. Nevin wants to see a definitive answer from the Army on whether another Special Forces soldier gave Bales mefloquine.

“Bales' case remains suspicious for possible exposure to mefloquine,” Nevin said. “Certainly nothing in the records rules it out definitively, and the military remains stubbornly unwilling to confirm or deny that he was, in fact, taking the medication. Given the seriousness of the events that transpired, it is of critical importance for drug regulators, policy makers, and the public to know definitively whether mefloquine may have played a role in the events of that night.”

The News Tribune has one remaining FOIA request involving Bales’ massacre. The newspaper is seeking an Army investigation into the command climate of his unit. The Army has refused to release the document even though Bales’ was given his life sentence 13 months ago. The document is expected to become available after a general considers Bales’ anticipated clemency request.

©2014 The (Tacoma, Wash.) News Tribune. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Bush grandson honors heroic grandfather at V-J Day celebration in DC

WASHINGTON — A small band of the Greatest Generation gathered on the National Mall at the World War II Memorial on Tuesday morning to mark the 69th anniversary of Victory over Japan Day that ended the war.

The featured speaker, George P. Bush, commemorated the heroic exploits of his grandfather, former President George H.W. Bush, a Navy pilot who on this day 70 years ago was shot down over the Pacific Ocean during a bombing run, and later rescued.

A Navy Reserve officer and veteran of Afghanistan, the younger Bush said that his grandfather, like most WWII veterans, was very humble about his war service.

“If he were here today, he would say this is not about him,” the 38-year-old Bush told a crowd of about 75 on a hot and bright summer morning.

With the Lincoln Memorial in the distance as a backdrop, the ceremony had all the pomp and circumstance of a military celebration. There was the presentation of colors by a U.S. Armed Forces color guard, musical accompaniment by the U.S. Navy Band Ceremonial Unit in dress white uniforms, wreaths honoring all the military services and the emotional playing of taps by the Navy band’s bugler.

Lt. Gen. Claude “Mick” Kicklighter, a retired Army officer and chairman of the Friends of the National World War II Memorial, called the former president’s experience a “miraculous rescue.”

“If that rescue had not occurred, there would be a lot of Bushes that wouldn’t be part of our history,” he said.

At 90, George H.W. Bush uses a wheelchair, unable to use his legs because of a form of Parkinson’s disease. He remains active and on his most recent birthday in June, did a tandem parachute jump.

Besides his illustrious grandfather, George P. Bush is the son of former Florida governor and possible 2016 GOP presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, and the nephew of former President George W. Bush.

“I come here bearing a clear message from my generation to yours: thank you,” he told the audience, which included a small number of WWII veterans. “Thank you for all you have done for all the great freedoms that Americans sometimes take for granted. … My generation will not fail you.”

The younger Bush said that “it was important that America won the war, but it was as important that America won the peace.” He cited some of the accomplishments that resulted, including the rebuilding of Japan, the postwar push to build the U.S. interstate highway system and the decision to embark on space exploration.

Bush also talked about the pride he has in his grandfather and in the USS George H.W. Bush, the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier named for him, now in the Persian Gulf providing the platform for sorties against Islamic radicals in Iraq.

WWII veteran Russell Jenkins, 89, from Purcellville, Va., who had been a D-Day medic, had his picture taken with Bush and spoke to him for several minutes after the wreath ceremony. Asked afterward what it meant to him to have one of the Bushes at the event, Jenkins’ eyes brimmed with tears.

His voice breaking, he said, “It was a great pleasure to hear what he had to say. I love the Bushes.”

Told of the reaction by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Bush was moved and spoke to a few reporters about his grandfather.

“He’s happy some of his family have chosen public service,” Bush said. “It’s part of his legacy.”

As for his own fledgling run at public office, Bush, considered a shoo-in in Republican Texas, said, “I’m not taking anything for granted. I’ve still got 65 days to go. … This is a good break from the trail.”

And it wouldn’t be a Bush event without some talk of presidential politics. Asked about his father’s potential candidacy in 2016, he said, “He will make his decision towards the end of the year.”

With that, the latest politician in the Bush family put on his sunglasses and headed back to Fort Worth to be home in time for dinner.

©2014 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Obama, allies to OK 4,000-troop NATO response force in Eastern Europe

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Confronted by a Kremlin-backed military offensive in Ukraine, President Barack Obama and Western allies will approve plans this week to position at least 4,000 troops and military equipment in Eastern Europe, bolstering NATO's security commitments to nervous member states near the Russian border.

Ahead of a high-stakes NATO summit that begins Thursday, Obama will also make a symbolic show of solidarity with Eastern Europe during meetings with Baltic leaders in Estonia. He arrived in the Estonian capital of Tallinn Wednesday morning.

Russia's monthslong conflict with Ukraine comes at a time when members of the NATO defense alliance have been cutting military spending and reassessing the organization's role after years of peace in Europe. While Ukraine is not part of NATO, alliance members in Eastern and Central Europe fear they could be Russia's next targets, prompting the 28-nation bloc to seek a more robust response.

"The current situation shows that the principle of collective territorial defense hasn't gone away — on the contrary," Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said Sunday, marking the 20th anniversary of the exit of the last Russian troops from Estonian territory.

Ukrainian officials say their country's armed forces are now locked in a conflict with not only Moscow-backed separatists, but also the Russian army. Officials said Tuesday that Russian military forces had been spotted in two major rebel-held cities in eastern Ukraine, though that could not be independently verified.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied that his forces are invading Ukraine. A Kremlin aide sharply criticized EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Tuesday, accusing him of breaching confidentiality when he quoted Putin as saying that Moscow could take over Kiev in two weeks if it wished.

Yuri Ushakov, the Russian leader's foreign policy adviser, told reporters that Putin's statement was "taken out of context and carried a completely different meaning."

For Obama, Russia's provocations in Ukraine and his response to them have prompted criticism that he has been unable to stop the crisis through his preferred method of steadily escalating economic sanctions. The president has warned Putin that the U.S. and Europe could impose more financial penalties, but he remains steadfastly opposed to intervening militarily.

Still, the U.S. will contribute to the rapid response force that NATO will agree to this week. While the specifics of the operation are to be decided when leaders meet in Wales on Thursday for a two-day summit, U.S. and European officials say it will involve training and deployments in the Baltics, Poland, Romania and other Eastern European nations.

The scope of the American contributions will be particularly important to Baltic nations and others in Eastern Europe.

"If there's anything that the Baltics do trust within NATO, it's a U.S. commitment," said Kathleen Hicks, a former Pentagon official who now chairs the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "So they will be pushing hard that that NATO contingent will have a heavy U.S. signal in it."

The U.S. has long provided troops for a NATO response force. Beginning Oct. 1, about 600 troops from the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, based at Fort Hood, Texas, will be part of that effort.

However, the current rapid response force structure is seen as having little capability to deploy in meaningful numbers. The goal of the new effort will be to station forces that can deploy within 48 hours.

Obama will also use the NATO summit to urge allies to meet their commitments to devote at least 2 percent of GDP to military spending. Only four NATO nations currently meet that benchmark: the U.S., Britain, Greece and Estonia.

Obama will confront some rifts within the alliance when it comes to dealing with Russia. Despite tough talk about Moscow's behavior, France is proceeding with plans to send Russia warships, a move the U.S. and Britain have denounced.

Other nations are also concerned that the new rapid response force could violate a 1997 agreement with Moscow in which NATO pledged not to permanently station substantial numbers of soldiers in Eastern Europe. Officials say NATO is expected to get around that agreement by referring to its new military commitments as "persistent" rather than "permanent."

With his daytrip to Estonia, Obama becomes the second U.S. president to visit the Baltic nation after President George W. Bush, who went there in 2006. He'll meet with Estonian officials, then convene broader security discussions with other Baltic leaders from Latvia and Lithuania.

Like Ukraine, the Baltics were ruled by Moscow until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. After the Soviet Union crumbled, the Baltic countries turned to the West and joined the European Union and NATO in 2004, irritating Russia.

Vice President Joe Biden also offered assurances Tuesday in a call with President Andrej Kiska of Slovakia, another NATO member and Ukraine's western neighbor. The White House said that Biden reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to NATO's collective defense and that Kiska noted that gas had begun flowing from Slovakia to Ukraine to help the former Soviet republic with some of its energy needs.

Beyond the crisis in Ukraine, NATO leaders will also discuss the final stages of the Afghanistan war. Alliance plans to celebrate the end of combat missions, however, are being clouded by political instability in Afghanistan that has stalled planning for the West's commitment to the country after this year.

Obama will also be seeking support from allies for efforts against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq. Shortly before the president's departure for Estonia, an Internet video surfaced purporting to show the militants beheading a second U.S. journalist.

Associated Press writers John-Thor Dahlburg in Brussels, Liudas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania, Jari Tanner in Tallinn, Estonia, and Lolita C. Baldor and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.

NATO coalition in Afghanistan shrinking

WASHINGTON — Alongside the exodus of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, soldiers who hail from countries such as Singapore and Slovenia, Mongolia and Malaysia have been packing up too, leaving behind an ever-shrinking NATO coalition.

The coalition has been fighting the war for more than a decade, but that combat mission ends in 17 weeks. On the agenda at this week's NATO meeting in Wales is nailing down which countries will contribute how many troops to the post-2014 mission to continue training the Afghan forces and who will pay the salaries of the Afghan policemen and soldiers going forward.

"There already has been so much blood and treasure invested no one wants to see this turn into what is happening in Iraq right now," said retired Adm. James Stavridis, who was NATO supreme allied commander from 2008 to 2013. "I think people realize we need to continue to advise and mentor the security forces for several more years."

There are about 30,700 U.S. forces still in Afghanistan, and President Barack Obama has said he wants to keep 9,800 American troops in the country after the end of the year. The number of non-American troops stands at about 14,400 — down more than 65 percent from a peak in May 2011 — and is shrinking fast.

Some countries such as Britain with 3,936, Germany with 2,250 and Italy with 1,653 still have a sizeable number of troops in the country. But 17 countries — representing about a third of current 48-nation coalition — have just 25 or fewer troops still deployed. They are: Austria, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, El Salvador, Estonia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Montenegro, New Zealand, Slovenia, Sweden, Tonga and Ukraine.

At its peak, about 50 nations were contributing troops to Afghanistan. Stavridis, who is now dean of the Fletcher School, a graduate school of international affairs at Tufts University in Massachusetts, predicted that the number of troop-contributing countries will drop to between 15 and 20 after the end of this year.

Starting next year, the U.S. has committed to keeping 9,800 troops in Afghanistan as part of a new NATO mission dubbed Resolute Support, which will train, advise and assist Afghan soldiers and policemen. About 4,000 to 5,000 non-American troops — mostly from Britain, Germany, Italy and Turkey — will be deployed as well, although the actual size of the new mission has not been finalized.

Formalizing those deployments will be contingent on the U.S. and NATO signing formal agreements with the Afghan government, which is in the throes of a bitterly contested presidential election. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign them, leaving the job to his successor.

The winner of the election was supposed to have been announced by now, but the two candidates — Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai — have alleged widespread election fraud and are fighting over a recount of votes.

Besides troop numbers, a key unresolved issue is which countries will make good on financial commitments to pay the salaries of Afghanistan security forces in the future, something the Afghan government will not be able to do on its own for years.

NATO has put the price tag of a 228,500-strong Afghan security force at about $4 billion a year, while another study carried out for Congress called for a larger base Afghan force of 344,300 plus 29,100 auxiliary forces at a cost of about $6 billion a year.

Stavridis predicted that more nations — probably 40 to 50 — will be willing to bankroll the Afghan security forces, partly because it's much cheaper than deploying their own troops there.

But war fatigue is rampant across the United States and Europe, and political realities could create a financial crisis in Afghanistan in coming years, warned Omar Hamid, who specializes in terrorism threats in Afghanistan and other countries at IHS Jane's, which specializes in defense and security analysis.

"There have been commitments, but that does not account for political changes within the NATO countries," Hamid said. "The appetite to fund at current levels is doubtful with changes in governments and fresh elections in France and Germany or wherever."

If the Afghan government can't pay its troops, political instability will spread in the country, support for the security forces will decline, and some policemen and soldiers will simply leave the forces, he said.

"If you start having problems with salaries to troops, police officers not being paid or those sorts of issues, then that problem escalates and you have the possibility of people withdrawing or pulling out or units refusing to fight. That is the risk.

"As far as the political appetite to continue funding Afghanistan at current levels — that is bound to decline over the next four to five years," Hamid said.

For sake of the party, don’t renominate Romney

In the 1991 movie “The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear,” Police Lt. Frank Drebin drinks away his sorrows in a blues bar while sad music plays and the camera pans across a wall with pictures depicting the worst disasters in history: the Chicago fire … the Hindenburg … the Titanic … and Michael Dukakis.

If they did a remake today, they would replace Dukakis’ picture on the wall with one of another Massachusetts governor: Mitt Romney.

Talk of a Romney 2016 run is heating up. A USA Today poll shows Romney with a huge lead in Iowa, far ahead of 14 other potential GOP candidates. And after months of Shermanesque denials, Romney recently cracked the door open to another presidential bid, telling radio host Hugh Hewitt that “circumstances can change.”

To which I say: Nooooo!

Don’t get me wrong, I wish Mitt Romney were president right now. And apparently so do a majority of Americans. A recent poll found that if the 2012 election were held today, Romney would beat Barack Obama by 53 percent to 44 percent. But those numbers more likely reflect buyer’s remorse with Obama than a sudden longing for a Romney administration. Indeed, the very same poll showed Romney losing to Hillary Rodham Clinton by 55 percent to 44 percent — not exactly the result Republicans are looking for in 2016.

In 2012, Romney got the nomination because he was running in one of the weakest fields the GOP had ever put forward. Just as Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld used to say that Guantanamo Bay was the “least worst” place to hold captured terrorists, Romney was like the Guantanamo Bay of candidates — the “least worst” person the GOP could nominate that year.

In 2016, Republicans have a much stronger field of potential candidates to choose from. Thanks to the GOP’s sweep of statehouses in recent years, there are a slew of successful governors other than Romney who could run, including Mike Pence, Bobby Jindal, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Chris Christie and Scott Walker. There is no need to settle for the “least worst” candidate this time around.

No doubt Romney has been vindicated since 2012. He was right about Russia, and correct when he warned that Obamacare would force millions to lose their health plans. But let’s not forget that Romney was also a horrible presidential candidate. He faced one of the most vulnerable incumbents in modern times — and found a way to lose.

He made huge tactical errors — from not responding to Obama’s devastating personal attacks all summer to letting Obama harness the power of data like a Bain Capital numbers-cruncher while Romney’s data-mining effort crashed and burned like, well, Solyndra.

But what ultimately cost Romney the election was a lack of vision — a flaw that is uncorrectable. Romney had changed positions so often over his career that by 2012 no one knew what he really believed.

Because he presented such a blank canvas, Romney allowed Obama to paint him as an unacceptable alternative. Indeed, he often took the brush in his own hands and did Obama’s job for him. Like when he told auto workers his wife “drives a couple of Cadillacs” … or described himself as “severely conservative” (something no actual conservative would say) … or declared that “corporations are people, my friend” … or offered to bet Texas Gov. Rick Perry “10 thousand bucks” … or said “I like being able to fire people” … or declared his immigration policy was “self-deportation” … or announced “I’m not concerned about the very poor” … or dismissed 47 percent of the country as a bunch of moochers “who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them.”

After this series of self-inflicted wounds, little wonder that only 35 percent of Americans said they believed that Romney cared about the poor, and just 38 percent said Romney “cares about people like me.” You can’t win an election when most Americans think you don’t care about them.

Why would Republicans want to relive that debacle? Mitt Romney is an utterly decent man who certainly would have been a much better president than Barack Obama. But he was given a golden opportunity to save the United States from a second Obama term and blew it.

Do Republicans really want to count on him to save the United States from Clinton’s first term?

Marc Thiessen writes a weekly column for The Washington Post on foreign and domestic policy and contributes to the PostPartisan blog. He is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Video depicts beheading of 2nd American journalist by Islamic State

WASHINGTON — Ignoring his mother’s plea for mercy, the Islamic State posted a video Tuesday showing the beheading of Steven Joel Sotloff, the second American journalist executed in two weeks by the extremist group in reprisal for U.S. airstrikes against its fighters in northern Iraq.

Sotloff’s slaying was certain to pile new pressure on President Barack Obama to devise a strategy for dealing with the brutal group in its sanctuary on Syria’s side of the border. Obama admitted last week his administration had not yet developed such a plan, triggering widespread derision.

Sotloff, 31, of Miami, appeared to have been executed within the past two days as his killer referred to U.S. airstrikes that on Sunday helped Iraqi forces break a two-month-long Islamic State siege of Amerli, a town populated by minority ethnic Turkmen.

He also appeared to have been killed by the same suspected British militant who had beheaded American freelance photojournalist James Foley, 40, of Rochester, N.H., on Aug. 19. The video of Foley’s slaying ended with the militant threatening to kill Sotloff unless Obama halted the U.S. airstrikes — which now total more than 120 — that began Aug.8. Sotloff’s capture last year in Syria had been kept secret until he appeared in that video.

Bernadette Mehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said the U.S. intelligence community was working “as quickly as possible” to verify the authenticity of the video. A statement issued by Barak Barfi, a Sotloff family spokesman, appeared to confirm that it was genuine.

“The family knows of this horrific tragedy and is grieving privately,” said the statement.

The video of Sotloff’s slaying was first detected by the SITE Intelligence Group, a private organization that monitors extremist Internet postings. Titled “A Second Message to America,” it began with a clip of Obama on Aug. 20 condemning Foley’s killing and vowing to “act against” the Islamic State “standing alongside others.”

Like Foley, Sotloff, a freelance writer for Time magazine and other publications, then spoke to the camera as he knelt in a bleak, desert-like setting. His black-clad executioner stood at his side, a knife in his left hand, only his eyes left uncovered by the black scarf swathing his face.

“I am Steven Joel Sotloff. I’m sure you know exactly who I am right now and why I’m appearing before you,” said Sotloff in a calm, steady voice. “Obama, your foreign policy of intervention in Iraq was supposed to be for the preservation of American lives and interests. So why is it that I’m paying the price of your interference with my life? Am I not an American citizen?”

Sotloff was clad — as was Foley — in a surgical scrubs-like garment of orange, the same color as the uniforms in which detainees who were abused at the former U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison were dressed.

It wasn’t clear whether Sotloff was speaking his own words or those dictated by his captors. His statement ended in a virtual taunt of Obama.

“From what little I know of U.S. foreign policy, you could not win an election without promising to bring our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan and to close down Guantanamo,” said Sotloff. “Here you are now, Obama, nearing the end of your term without having achieved any of the above, deceivingly marching us, the American people, into a blazing fire.”

After Sotloff ended, the killer was seen standing behind him and beginning to slice into his throat. The video then cut to a picture of Sotloff’s bloodied head sitting atop his corpse.

The killer addressed the camera, speaking in what sounded like the same British accent as that of Foley’s executioner. He referred not only to the U.S. airstrikes at Amerli, but U.S. attacks that have driven the Islamic State back from the Mosul Dam, which Iraqi forces and a Kurdish militia recaptured the day before Foley’s execution.

“I’m back Obama and I’m back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State, because of your insistence in continuing your bombings in Amerli and the Mosul Dam. Despite our warnings, you Obama have yet again through your actions killed yet another American citizen,” said the militant. “So just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knives will continue to strike the necks of your people.”

The video ended with the killer standing next to another kneeling, orange-clad hostage, identified as David Cawthorne Haines, a British citizen, who apparently is the next to be killed. The militants warned other governments — which include Britain — to quit a U.S.-led coalition that has been arming the peshmerga, the militia of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, against the Islamic State.

“I take this opportunity to warn those governments who’ve entered this evil alliance of America against the Islamic State to back off and leave our people alone,” he said.

Haines reportedly is a former British soldier who worked for a number of humanitarian organizations as a security adviser.

Although British officials have yet to identify the suspect in the Foley killing, British news reports have said he is thought to be Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, 24, a former rapper who traveled to Syria last year to join the Islamic State.

Sotloff was killed a week after his mother, Shirley Sotloff, a teacher, released a video plea for her son’s life. She addressed her request directly to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the shadowy head of the caliphate — or religious state — that the Islamic State declared on the huge swaths of northern Iraq and Syria it has overrun since mid-June.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that the administration had dedicated “significant time and resources” to trying to rescue Sotloff.

“This is something that the administration has obviously been watching very carefully, since this threat against Mr. Sotloff’s life was originally made a few weeks ago,” Earnest said. “Our thoughts and prayers, first and foremost, are with Mr. Sotloff and Mr. Sotloff’s family and those who worked with him.”

A July 4 U.S. Special Forces raid to rescue Foley from a camp near the Islamic State’s headquarters in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa failed as he had been moved.

Foley and Sotloff spent extensive time in the Middle East covering the turmoil unleashed by the Arab Spring. Sotloff wrote some of Time magazine’s initial coverage of the September 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. He also chronicled the humanitarian disaster afflicting millions of people inside Syria.

After attending high school in New Hampshire, Sotloff studied at the University of Central Florida, but left before graduating to pursue his journalism career.

The Islamic State has set up a quasi-administration of social services and Islamic courts, which mete out crucifixions and other punishments for alleged transgressions of Islamic law. Its fighters also have committed numerous atrocities, including beheadings, mass executions, rape and selling women captives into slavery, according to human rights groups and online videos.

The Foley and Sotloff videos were professionally made, underscoring the sophistication of the group’s propaganda operations, which spread such materials on social media to attract new recruits and terrify the millions of people living under its rule.

Michael Quigley, a national security expert at Human Rights First, said the Sotoff video and others like it appeared aimed at turning U.S. public opinion against Obama’s decision to intervene in Iraq less than three years after the last U.S. combat troops left, ending the eight-year U.S. occupation.

“I think what they’re trying to do is to get the American people say it’s not worth it,” said Quigley, who served as the National Counter-Terrorism Center’s lead analyst on al-Qaida in Iraq, the terrorist group from which the Islamic State emerged.

But the Islamic State’s effort actually may be backfiring because of widespread public revulsion at Foley’s murder. A public opinion poll published last week by YouGov.com, a market research firm, showed that 63 percent of Americans now back military strikes against the Islamic State inside Syria, compared to a year ago, when 62 percent opposed U.S. military action there.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., announced that he would file legislation giving Obama clear authority to order U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria.

Obama departed Washington on Tuesday afternoon for a NATO summit in Cardiff, Wales, without commenting on Sotloff’s execution. While the Russian-backed insurrection in Ukraine was to take center stage, Obama was expected to consult on the summit sidelines with other world leaders on dealing with the Islamic State.

The president has sought strenuously to minimize U.S. involvement in Syria, where the more than 3-year-old civil war pits President Bashar Assad’s Iran-backed forces against the Islamic State and weaker insurgent groups, including al-Qaida’s affiliate, the Nusra Front. Most of the groups also are fighting the Islamic State.

But Obama is being forced to reconsider his policy by the Islamic State’s massive territorial seizures, its murderous atrocities and growing threat to U.S. allies in the region, Foley’s murder and the acknowledgment by top U.S. officials that the group can’t be crushed without addressing its presence in Syria.

After Foley’s death, Obama authorized the first U.S. surveillance flights of Islamic State targets in Syria and launched an effort — to be spearheaded by a diplomatic tour after the NATO summit by Secretary of State John Kerry — to build an international coalition to fight the group through military, humanitarian and other means.

The execution of Sotloff could help Kerry garner support, Quigley said.

“The diplomatic pressure will go up. John Kerry has a mission ahead of him. What else motivates the secretary of state more than … losing one of our own,” he said.

Obama also has said he intends to increase support for moderate Syrian opposition groups, who have long complained of receiving very little help from the United States.

At the same time, Obama said last week that he hadn’t yet developed a strategy for crushing the Islamic State inside Syria, drawing intense criticism from Republicans, former diplomats and some regional experts.

Earnest pushed back at the criticism on Tuesday.

“There are certainly people who will take advantage of the opportunity to do some Monday morning quarterbacking here,” he said. “But ultimately, when you’re the commander in chief, the decision resides with you to make best use of American military force to protect American interests.”

For more than two years, the Committee to Protect Journalists has ranked Syria as the most dangerous country in the world for journalists.

At least 70 other journalists have been killed and more than 80 have been kidnapped while covering the conflict, according to CPJ figures. The group estimates that around 20 journalists are currently missing in Syria, most of them Syrians. They include Austin Tice of Houston, a freelancer for worked for McClatchy, The Washington Post and other news outlets.

Hannah Allam, Anita Kumar, Daniel Salazar and Samantha Ehlinger contributed to this report.

©2014 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Blackwater legacy: a faint memory of Nisoor Square

WASHINGTON — The summer-long trial of four Blackwater security guards in the shootings of more than 30 Iraqis has been a grim retelling of lives snuffed out and the daily life-and-death decisions amid the chaos of war.

Wrapping up almost 6,200 miles from Baghdad, the trial is the best hope the survivors and the families of the victims have for accountability for the violence at Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, 2007, in which 14 people were killed. After 10 weeks of arguments and testimony, the case goes to the jury Tuesday.

One of the guards, Nicholas Slatten, faces up to life imprisonment if convicted of first-degree murder. The other three — Paul Slough, Dustin Heard and Evan Liberty — face mandatory minimum sentences of 30 years in prison each if convicted on a gun charge and one other felony.

In the seven years of legal proceeding it took to get the case to trial, the world has largely moved on. But for federal prosecutors seeking prison terms — and for the accused and their defense lawyers looking for the jury's understanding — the case comes down to a question of justice.

To drive home the horror of permanently disabling gunshot wounds, prosecutors had one Iraqi witness partially disrobe to show his injuries to the jury of eight women and four men. The 12-person panel includes a few military veterans and government employees.

Under gentle questioning by the prosecution, another witness bowed his head and wept uncontrollably as he described the killing of his 9-year-old son. After the gunfire stopped, the father said, he opened a back door on his car. His son's brains fell out at his feet, he said.

"The world went dark for me," he testified through an interpreter.

Among the victims was a down-on-his-luck potato farmer who had gone to Baghdad looking for work. He was wounded; two cousins with him were killed.

Other victims included a devoutly religious mother and her daughter, who were in the Nisoor Square area applying for travel documents so they could visit holy sites. The mother's last act before dying was to grab her daughter's head and shelter it in her lap, likely saving her life.

Prosecutors summoned more than 60 witnesses, the defense just four. But that seeming imbalance doesn't tell the whole story because some of the prosecution's witnesses turned out to be helpful to the four employees of the private company that provided security for U.S. officials after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Lawyers for the four defendants have argued that insurgents fired on a Blackwater vehicle convoy in the square, prompting a justifiable response from the guards.

The prosecutors maintain there was no incoming gunfire at Nisoor Square that day.

In closing arguments last week, prosecutor Anthony Asuncion said Slatten, the guard charged with murder, was "the one who lit the match that ignited the firestorm." Asuncion said Slatten fired the first shots, killing the driver of a car moving through the square toward the convoy.

Slatten didn't fire the first shots, responded Brian Heberlig, a lawyer for Slough.

"My client Paul Slough fired the first shots," Heberlig said.

Slough was shooting at the engine block of the approaching car and not at its driver or passenger, Heberlig said. Shooting the engine block was what Slough had been trained to do in such circumstances, the lawyer said.

Prosecutors have gotten the case "wrong from start to finish," Heberlig said. "Nicholas Slatten didn't shoot the driver of that car."

Heberlig said Jeremy Ridgeway, another former Blackwater guard, fired the shots that killed the driver. Ridgeway was one of the prosecution's main witnesses and has pleaded guilty in the case.

Prosecutors argued that Slatten looked through his sniper scope and saw a close-up image of the driver.

Slatten's attorney, Thomas Connolly, asked the jury if they heard from any witnesses saying that they saw Slatten look through the sniper scope.

"They're just making this stuff up," Connolly told the jury.

Separately, a number of prosecution witnesses lent support to the defense on the issue of incoming gunfire.

Kevin Rhodes, a former Blackwater guard, testified that as soon as he heard the first gunshots that day, he saw fluid pouring from the radiator of one of the Blackwater convoy's vehicles. He said that led him to believe that the shots were incoming gunfire that had hit the radiator.

In rebuttal, prosecutor Patrick Martin told the jury that the mark on the radiator looks like marks caused by an M203 grenade. The Blackwater guards had fired several such rounds the day before the Nisoor Square shootings.