Everything about this story makes me think this guy's being railroaded for what will ultimately turn out to be innocuous behavior. First of all, it's highly unlikely that a Lt. Colonel would be boneheaded enough to commit a genuinely treasonous act in a combat zone. The pornography charges recall the desperate witch hunt aimed at Capt. James Yee, the muslim chaplin at Guantanimo, a few years ago. That's mentioned here, but the vindictiveness of the Pentagon toward Yee, and the utter groundlessness of the charges, are downplayed in the article. I'm guessing the Lt Colonel, like Yee, made the mistake of performing an act of kindness toward another human being, like letting a prisoner make a cell phone call to relatives.
Gary
U.S. Officer in Iraq Charged With ‘Aiding the Enemy’
By DAMIEN CAVE <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/damien_cave/index.html?inline=nyt-per> Published: April 26, 2007
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 military statement released today, Lt. Col. William H. Steele provided aid to the enemy between October 1, 2005 and October 31, 2006 “by providing an unmonitored cellular phone to detainees” at Camp Cropper, an expansive prison near Baghdad International Airport that held Saddam Hussein <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/saddam_hussein/index.html?inline=nyt-per> before he was executed.
The military statement said the charge was one of nine brought against Colonel 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 that Colonel Steele is currently in Kuwait awaiting the equivalent of a grand jury hearing in a military court. They emphasized that he should be presumed innocent.