Matthis Chiroux is the
kind of young American US military recruiters love.
"I was from a poor, white family from
the south, and I did badly in school," the now 24-year-old told AFP.
"I was 'filet mignon' for recruiters.
They started phoning me when I was in 10th grade," or around 16
years old, he added.
Chiroux joined the US army straight out
of high school nearly six years ago, and worked his way up from
private to sergeant.
He served in Afghanistan, Germany,
Japan, and the Philippines and was due to be deployed next month in
Iraq.
On Thursday, he refused to go, saying he
considers Iraq an illegal war.
"I stand before you today with the
strength and clarity and resolve to declare to the military, my
government and the world that this soldier will not be deploying to
Iraq," Chiroux said in the sun-filled rotunda of a congressional
building in Washington.
"My decision is based on my desire to no
longer continue violating my core values to support an illegal and
unconstitutional occupation... I refuse to participate in the Iraq
occupation," he said, as a dozen veterans of the five-year-old Iraq
war looked on.
Minutes earlier, Chiroux had cried
openly as he listened to former comrades-in-arms testify before
members of Congress about the failings of the Iraq war.
The testimonies were the first before
Congress by Iraq veterans who have turned against the five-year-old
war.
Former army sergeant Kristofer Goldsmith
told a half-dozen US lawmakers and scores of people who packed into
a small hearing room of "lawless murders, looting and the abuse of
countless Iraqis."
He spoke of the psychologically fragile
men and women who return from Iraq, to find little help or treatment
offered from official circles.
Goldsmith said he had "self-medicated"
for several months to treat the wounds of the war.
Another soldier told AFP he had to boost
his dosage of medication to treat anxiety and social agoraphobia --
two of many lingering mental wounds he carries since his deployments
in Iraq -- before testifying.
Some 300,000 of the 1.6 million US
soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from the
psychological traumas of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression
or both, an independent study showed last month.
A group of veterans sitting in the
hearing room gazed blankly as their comrades' testimonies shattered
the official version that the US effort in Iraq is succeeding.
Almost to a man, the soldiers who
testified denounced serious flaws in the chain of command in Iraq.
Luis Montalvan, a former army captain,
accused high-ranking US officers of numerous failures in Iraq,
including turning a blind eye to massive fraud on the part of US
contractors.
Ex-Marine Jason Lemieux told how a
senior officer had altered a report he had written because it
slammed US troops of using excessive force, firing off thousands of
rounds of machine gun fire and hundreds of grenades in the face of a
feeble four rounds of enemy fire.
Goldsmith accused US officials of
censorship.
"Everyone who manages a blog, Facebook
or Myspace out of Iraq has to register every video, picture,
document of any event they do on mission," Goldsmith told AFP after
the hearing.
"You're almost always denied before you
are allowed to send them home."
Officials take "hard facts and slice
them into small pieces to make them presentable to the secretary of
state or the president -- and all with the intent of furthering the
occupation of Iraq," Goldsmith added.
Chiroux is one of thousands of US
soldiers who have deserted since the Iraq war began in 2003,
according to figures issued last year by the US army.
But while many seek refuge in Canada,
the young soldier vowed to stay in the United States to fight
"whatever charges the army levels at me."
The US army defines a deserter as
someone who has been absent without leave for 30 days.
Chiroux stood fast in his resolve to not
report for duty on June 15.
"I cannot deploy to Iraq, carry a weapon
and not be part of the problem," he told AFP.
