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THE WASHINGTON POST

Soldier's Death Strengthens Senators' Antiwar Resolve
Kerry, Dodd Demand Stronger Challenge to Bush

By Jonathan Weisman and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 30, 2007; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...7012902002.html

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Freeman, 31, ......... , returned to his base in Karbala, Iraq, and less than two weeks ago died in a hail of bullets and grenades. Insurgents, dressed in U.S. military uniforms, speaking English and driving black American SUVs, got through a checkpoint and attacked, kidnapped four soldiers and later shot them. Freeman died in the assault, the fifth casualty of the brazen attack.

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Freeman had served out his five-year active-duty tour well before he was sent to Iraq.

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He was in California with a civilian job, a 1-year-old son named Gunnar and another baby on the way in the fall of 2005 when a shortage of officers prompted a large call-up by the IRR of West Point graduates from the classes of 1998 and later -- many of whom had only a few months of service left.

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Once in Iraq, Freeman was dismayed to find that his training "had no relation to what they were actually doing," Charlotte Freeman said. "He was appalled," enduring danger but seeing no clear mission, she said. Moreover, he believed that the Iraqis "didn't want us there."

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Calling him "ridiculously" bright, Nichols said Freeman did not oppose the war but "wanted it to be done better and smarter."

After Dodd mentioned an unnamed Army captain's concerns on NBC's "Meet The Press," Freeman e-mailed him to bring up another concern: the mistreatment of Iraqi interpreters by military contractors.

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It was not just Freeman's death that deeply troubled and provoked the two senators, but the way he died, in an apparent betrayal by Iraqi allies.