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WASHINGTON — State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley quit on Sunday after causing a stir by describing the military's treatment of the suspected WikiLeaks leaker as "ridiculous" and "stupid," pointed words that forced President Barack Obama to defend the detention as appropriate.
"Given the impact of my remarks, for which I take full responsibility, I have submitted my resignation" to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to a department statement attributed to the office of the spokesman.
Crowley's comments about the conditions for Pfc. Bradley Manning at a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia, reverberated quickly, from the small audience in Massachusetts where Crowley spoke to a White House news conference Friday where Obama weighed in about the 23-year-old soldier believed responsible for the largest leak of classified American documents ever.
Manning is being held in solitary confinement for all but an hour every day, and is stripped naked each night and given a suicide-proof smock to wear to bed. His lawyer calls the treatment degrading. Amnesty International says it may violate Manning's human rights.
Crowley was quoted as saying in Massachusetts that he didn't understand why the military was handling Manning's detention that way, and calling it "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid." Crowley also said "Manning is in the right place" in military detention.
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