U.S. soldier who fled to Canada surrenders

RADCLIFF, Ky. — An Army soldier who fled to Canada rather than redeploy to Iraq surrendered Tuesday to military officials after asking for leniency.

Spc. Darrell Anderson, 24, said he deserted the Army last year because he could no longer fight in what he believes is an illegal war.

"I feel that by resisting I made up for the things I did in Iraq," Anderson said during a news briefing shortly before he turned himself in at nearby Fort Knox. "I feel I made up for the sins I committed in this war."

Anderson, of Lexington, Ky., returned to the United States from Canada on Saturday. He could face a charge of desertion.

Attorney Jim Fennerty of Chicago said Anderson will be interviewed by military investigators, given a uniform and assigned to a barracks while his case is processed. In three to five days, he will be given a discharge of other than honorable. At that point, he should be free from his military commitment and face no other charges, Fennerty said.

Gini Sinclair, a spokeswoman for Fort Knox, would not discuss Anderson specifically, but said officers review AWOL soldiers' cases before they are discharged.

Anderson joined the Army in January 2003 and went to Iraq a year later with the 1st Armored Division. He was wounded and received a Purple Heart in 2004.

He fled to Canada in early 2005 after receiving orders to return for a second tour of duty in Iraq, becoming a highly visible war critic and spokesman for Canadian peace groups.

Red Cross visits new Baghdad prison

GENEVA — The international Red Cross said Tuesday it has visited a new U.S. prison at Camp Cropper outside Baghdad, Iraq, and had its first opportunity in more than 20 months to see hundreds of former Abu Ghraib prisoners now housed there.

A team of 16 delegates visited the prison holding about 3,550 detainees — believed to be a quarter of the prisoners the U.S. detains outside its borders — the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement. The Geneva-based organization made no comment on conditions there.

Most of the prisoners being held there recently transferred from Abu Ghraib, which the ICRC regularly visited until January 2005, when it suspended trips after a Red Cross employee was killed outside the camp.

The ICRC has been regularly visiting Iraqi detainees in prisons under American and British authority since April 2003, when Saddam Hussein was ousted after the U.S.-led invasion.

The ICRC is entrusted with visiting prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions on warfare.

Also

Soldier dies: A U.S. soldier serving in Kuwait was found dead Sunday of a noncombat-related injury, and the military is investigating, a spokesman said. Army Master Sgt. Peter Chadwick declined to identify the soldier, except to say she was female. Kuwait was the launch pad for the 2003 invasion that toppled the Iraqi leader, and it is still a logistics base for U.S. and other coalition forces.