While no higher officer has been charged in the abuses at the Abu Graibh prison, the U.S. Army is seriously going after a commander who was strict with the rules regarding detainees and handled them humanily.
From the LA Times:
A senior U.S. Army officer accused of aiding the enemy when he oversaw detainees at an American-run prison in Baghdad stashed huge amounts of "extremely sensitive" topsecret material in his living quarters that could have devastated the United States’ mission in Iraq if it had been leaked, an investigator testified Tuesday.
Another investigator in the case against Lt. Col. William H. Steele said that during an interview, the officer admitted that he empathized with the prisoners he oversaw, who included ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and members of his former regime, and that he had lent them his cellular phone to make private calls.
The NYT and WaPo also have accounts on this. All three pieces start with very damning phrases about the Colonel.
From what I can glean the accusations include:
- letting detainees use his cellphone
- having "secret" documents stored where they should not be
- "improper" contact to a detainees daughter
- "provided former president Saddam Hussein with Cuban cigars at taxpayer expense"
Earlier reports also named:
- improper relation with a translator
- pornographic pictures on his government laptop
Only deep down the pages we learn that the serious charges in the opening paragraphs are quite dubious.
- When no other telephone was available, the Colonel allowed a juvenile detainee to phone his family with his official cellphone.
- The "huge amount" of "secret" stuff was on his official laptop within his quarters. If every stored email is a "secret", that may well have accounted to the alleged 18,000 "secret" items.
- He provided a detainees daughter with materials for her architecture study that she could not get in Baghdad.
- To provide cigars to Saddam was a policy he inherited from his predecessor.
The two sex-charges from earlier reports have somehow vanished from the recent ones.
Earlier Scott Horton at Harpers reported from his contacts in Baghdad:
Steele was described as a “person of unquestioned integrity,” he was credited with maintaining “strict discipline and order” at Camp Cropper and showed “zero tolerance of prisoner abuse.” Another said he was “a person with a conscience.” One described how he intervened directly to protect a prisoner who had been mistreated by interrogators. He insisted that those serving under him treat the detainees “like human beings.” He “was a constant target of those who like to use rough stuff.”
It seems obvious that this man is getting burned. First he did get top evaluations for his work at Camp Cropper and now even twelve year old accusations he had faced in his civilian life are trotted out against him.
Someone at the Pentagon wants to put up an example here. Whoever is barely friendly with prisoners, may be "aiding the enemy". An accusation that can end with a death penalty sentence.
The message is: "More Abu Graibhs, less humanity."
Rumsfeldian policies seem not to have ended with Sec Def Gates rule.