July 30, 2006 10:55 PM ET

WASHINGTON Steven Green, the former U.S. soldier accused of raping and murdering an Iraqi girl and members of her family compared killing people in Iraq to "squashing an ant," in an interview with a reporter about a month before the attack.

Writing in Sunday's Washington Post, Andrew Tilghman, a former correspondent for the military paper Stars and Stripes, said he interviewed Green several times in February south of Baghdad.

"I came over here because I wanted to kill people," he quoted Green as saying. "The truth is, it wasn't all I thought it was cracked up to be. I mean, I thought killing somebody would be this life-changing experience. And then I did it, and I was like, 'All right, whatever.'

"I shot a guy who wouldn't stop when we were out at a traffic checkpoint and it was like nothing," Green was quoted as saying. "Over here, killing people is like squashing an ant.

"I mean, you kill somebody and it's like, 'All right, let's go get some pizza.'"

Green is under arrest in Kentucky for the March 12 murders of the Iraqi girl and three of her relatives. He was honorably discharged from the military for a "personality disorder," has pleaded not guilty.

Tilghman said Green saw the war in Iraq as pointless. "I just want to go home alive," he quoted the soldier.

Former Soldier Accused of Atrocity Had Talked to Reporter About Killing Iraqis