The warrior who sheathed his sword

last updated 8 January 2015

Marc Garlasco has looked at war from both sides, says Josh White in The Washington Post. Garlasco works for Human Rights Watch, assessing the human toll of war and lobbying for greater deliberation in the use of military force. Five years ago, he had a starkly different role. As an analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency, he targeted laser-guided bombs in Iraq. His transition from targeter to human-rights advocate did not happen overnight. An eight-year veteran of the Pentagon, Garlasco began his evolution when he went to Kosovo in 1999 to assess damage following the NATO bombing campaign. “Seeing the locals digging in the bombed-out rubble for building materials was new to me,” he says. “It was something you just don’t get when you have photos of a target and a projected death toll.” He’d always had doubts about the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but the final straw came when an airstrike he helped plan in 2003 against a high-value Iraqi target ended up killing 17 civilians instead. “I found myself standing at that crater, talking to a man about how his children were killed, and there was this bunny-rabbit toy covered in dust nearby and it tore me in two.” Garlasco says he knows war is sometimes necessary, but he wants policymakers to be clearer about the consequences. “Even when you hit the right target, there are times when innocents pay the price. I just want people to ask, ‘Did it have to happen?’”