Suspect Soldiers: Iraq doctor's shooter had long record

Third in a four-part series

Dr. Yasser Salihee's body lay in his compact car on a busy Baghdad street for everyone to see.

The doctor, employed as a journalist, was shot by an American soldier who claimed that Salihee refused to slow down and who believed he presented a threat.

Though the details are disputed, the results were not: The June 2005 shooting outraged the very population the military is trying to win over.

"Before the accident I loved the Americans ... but after the accident, I hate all the Army," Salihee's widow, Raghad Al-Jabar Al wazan, also a medical doctor, told The Sacramento Bee. "All my neighbors were hating the Americans."

The shooter seemed beyond suspicion, with a resume fit for a character from a John Wayne movie: son of a Vietnam-era fighter pilot, former elite Army Ranger, sniper team leader, accomplished hunter and marksman, aspiring wilderness guide with a trunk full of awards and a small fan club of admiring young soldiers.

"This kid was a good soldier," said former Louisiana National Guard Maj. Andre Vige, who conducted an administrative inquiry into the shooting. "Good outfit. Good guys. One of the premier combat brigades of the National Guard. They were the standard bearer."

But a yearlong examination by The Bee found that the shooter, Staff Sgt. Joseph J. Romero, brought a long, troubled past with him to Iraq, and the Guard unit Vige praised was riddled with misfits, drug users and soldiers with criminal records - at least two of them former mental patients.

Vige, whose full-time job is selling oil field equipment, had no experience investigating homicides as a law enforcement officer, had no access to key evidence and was unaware of Romero's background when he decided not to recommend a more detailed criminal investigation into the shooting.

Romero is one of more than 70 soldiers and Marines, The Bee examination found, with questionable backgrounds who were linked to incidents in the military, most occurring in Iraq. The Bee examination covered only a fraction of the more than 1.4 million people in uniform - about 145,000 serving in Iraq - and was conducted largely without the sophisticated criminal databases available to the military.

Romero's history was similar to that of many of the others in The Bee examination: financial difficulties, domestic troubles, minor but persistent criminal histories, allegations of substance abuse - or combinations of the four.

When civilian shootings do not result in criminal charges, the identity of the shooter generally is protected by the military. But in Romero's case, a Salon.com reporter embedded himself in the 256th Brigade Combat Team to identify him. The Bee uncovered hundreds of pages of records and other information on Romero and his unit not previously made public in reports by Salon and National Public Radio.

"CID (Army Criminal Investigation Command) had a long rap sheet on him," said Col. John Dunlap of the Louisiana National Guard, who supervised two drug investigations of Romero in Iraq. "There was a ton of stuff, and it was like he'd slip out every time. Nothing would happen to him."

When he shot Salihee, Romero was under investigation for selling cocaine, military records show, and days before the shooting, Romero threatened to kill a fellow soldier who reported him to CID.

Twenty-one days after the shooting, the drug allegations prompted the Army to strip Romero of his leadership, bar him from missions and take away his large-caliber sniper rifle.

"An individual who is using controlled substances is not in the best possession of his faculties, able to protect others as a sniper is required to do, or protect himself," a military judge said, in ruling that the action against Romero did not constitute unfair pretrial punishment.

The Bee made numerous attempts to seek Romero's comments, sending Federal Express packages to him and his attorney and making two trips to Louisiana. Romero, 36, agreed to a meeting in January, but when a reporter and photographer arrived at his family's home, they found only his stepfather, mother and attorney there.

About the writer:

• Call The Bee's Russell Carollo, (916) 321-1178. Director of Editorial Research Pete Basofin and Assistant Director Sheila A. Kern contributed to this report.