U.S. military charges officer with "aiding the enemy"

BAGHDAD: The American military has charged a top commander at its main detention center here with "aiding the enemy," a rare and serious accusation that carries a maximum sentence of death.

According to a statement issued Thursday by the military, Lieutenant Colonel William Steele provided aid to the enemy from Oct. 1, 2005, to Oct. 31, 2006, "by providing an unmonitored cellular phone to detainees" at Camp Cropper, an expansive prison near the Baghdad airport that held Saddam Hussein before he was executed.

The military statement said the charge was one of nine brought against Steele who - until he was detained last month - oversaw one of several compounds at Camp Cropper as commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment.

He was also accused of illegally storing and marking classified information, disobeying orders relating to his possession of pornography, dereliction of duty regarding government funds and conduct unbecoming of an officer - for fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee since 2005 and for maintaining "an inappropriate relationship" with an interpreter in 2005 and 2006.

Military officials said Colonel Steele was now in Kuwait awaiting the equivalent of a grand jury hearing in a military court. They emphasized that he should be presumed not guilty.

"Is there enough evidence or information that this needs to go to a court-martial?" said Lieutenant Colonel Josslyn Aberle, a military spokeswoman. "That's where we're at right now."

Aberle declined to comment on when Steele's hearing would occur, the scope of the classified materials he was accused of retaining, or whether there was a connection between his allegedly improper relationships and the other apparent violations of military law.

But the case is clearly another public relations bruise for the American detention system. Camp Cropper was meant to signify reform. It was expanded in recent years to act as a replacement for Abu Ghraib, where American jailers photographed themselves humiliating and torturing Iraqi prisoners, and it now holds about 3,000 people.

Among the families of arrested Iraqis, Camp Cropper and Camp Bucca, the main American detention facility in southern Iraq, have remained preferable to the prisons of the Iraqi system, which are widely describe as rife with corruption and torture. But Camp Cropper has also had its share of problems. Several detainees there have died mysteriously in the past year, with the most recent death occurring April 4. The causes of death for these prisoners are rarely divulged.

Steele's case is at least the second involving accusations of collaborating with the enemy to arise from an American military prison. In Sept. 2003, Captain John Yee, a Muslim chaplain at the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba, was accused of mutiny, sedition, aiding the enemy, adultery and possession of pornography.

The military dropped all the criminal charges the following March, citing national security concerns that would arise from the publication of evidence against him. A month later, Yee's record was wiped clean when an army general dismissed his convictions for adultery and pornography.

Elsewhere in Iraq, the American military continued its battle against violence, with mixed results.

North of Baghdad, two Iraqi women and two children were believed to have been killed in an American airstrike that killed four suspected insurgents, according to a military statement.

Soldiers were searching for car bomb factories near Taji, about 19 kilometers, or 12 miles, north of Baghdad, when they came under small arms fire, the statement said. The soldiers called in an airstrike and later discovered all eight bodies at the destroyed building.

Citing the presence of weapons in the building as evidence, military officials blamed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia for the women's and children's deaths.

Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver, a military spokesperson, blamed the Qaeda group for the deaths, saying it "continues to use women and children in their illegal activities."

"Al Qaeda continues to demonstrate they do not care about the future of Iraq, and we will continue to target all terrorists in Iraq regardless of their titles or positions within the community."

The Iraqi police said a suicide car bomber had exploded his vehicle south of Khalis in Diyala Province on Thursday, killing six Iraqi policemen.

The police said that four bodies, showing signs of torture, were found nearby in a grove of palm trees, while in Baquba, the largest city in Diyala clashes broke out between militants and the police, who were assisted by American forces. At least two police officers were wounded.

In Baghdad, roadside bombs, mortars and car bombs throughout the city killed at least nine people and wounded scores.