Attorney: Army to allow 1st officer to refuse Iraq duty to resign

Attorney: Anti-Iraq officer resigning from Army

HONOLULU — An attorney says the first commissioned officer to be court-martialed for refusing to go to Iraq will be allowed to resign from the service.

Kenneth S. Kagan attorney says in a statement Friday that the Army plans to grant 1st Lt. Ehren Watada a discharge “under other than honorable conditions.”

The Honolulu-born soldier told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that he was “glad to finally bring this chapter to a close and to move on.”

Watada refused to deploy to Iraq with his Fort Lewis, Wash.-based unit in 2006, arguing the war is illegal and that he would be a party to war crimes if he served in Iraq.

His court-martial ended in mistrial.