Afghan war whistleblower Daniel Davis: 'I had to speak out – lives are at stake'

Soldier wrote detailed report claiming US generals 'have so distorted the truth … the truth has become unrecognisable'

Paul Harris in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 14 April 2012 06.20 EDT

"I am – how do you say it? – persona non grata," said Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Davis, as he sat sipping a coffee and eating a chocolate sundae in a shopping mall, just a subway stop from the Pentagon.
The career soldier is now a black sheep at the giant defence department building where he still works. The reason was his extraordinarily brave decision to accuse America's military top brass of lying about the war in Afghanistan. When he went public in the New York Times, he was acclaimed as a hero for speaking out about a war that many Americans feel has gone horribly awry. Later this month he will receive a Ridenhour prize, an award given to whistleblowers that is named after the Vietnam war soldier who exposed the My Lai massacre.

Davis believes people are not being told the truth and said so in a detailed report that he wrote after returning from his second tour of duty in the country. He had been rocketed, mortared and had stepped on an improvised explosive device that failed to explode. Soldiers he had met were killed and he was certain that a bloody disaster was unfolding. So he spoke out. "It's like I see in slow motion men dying for nothing and I can't stop it," he said. "It is consuming me from the inside. It is eating me alive."