Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
May 2, 2007
By Damien Cave
BAGHDAD, May 1 — A senior commander in the American military’s main detention center here lent prisoners his government cellphone, regularly exchanged e-mail messages with the daughter of a high-value detainee and used public funds to supply Saddam Hussein with hair dye and Cuban cigars, investigators said at a military hearing on Tuesday.
Lt. Col. William H. Steele, 51, a reservist from Prince George, Va., faces nine charges relating to his command at the detention center, Camp Cropper, from October 2005 to October 2006. The suspected cellphone misuse led to an accusation of “aiding the enemy” — potentially a capital offense. But testimony by military investigators at the second and last day of the hearing suggested that the cellphone issue was a sign of Colonel Steele’s lenient approach to detention.
Colonel Steele, the testimony showed, took pride in trying to make Camp Cropper the antithesis of Abu Ghraib, where prisoners were tortured and abused. One military investigator said Colonel Steele told him he was willing to “do things under the table” to complete his mission.
Prosecutors at the hearing on Tuesday seemed intent on showing that he had gone too far, and had lost sight of how to manage the dangerous men he was guarding.
“Did he express empathy toward high-value detainees and say he understood the personal anguish they were under and wanted to make their lives better?” one of the government’s lawyers asked Special Agent John Nocella, a counterintelligence investigator who interrogated Colonel Steele in February.
“Yes,” Mr. Nocella said.
Did Colonel Steele say that some detainees were innocent “and should be allowed as many privileges as possible?” asked one of the prosecutors.
“Yes, he did,” Mr. Nocella said.
He added that Colonel Steele was aware that phone calls by detainees were to be made only on authorized phones with an interpreter and an American soldier present, but that he skirted those rules when there were no appropriate phones available.
Mr. Nocella said Colonel Steele’s admission was made during questioning in Iraq by several agents that lasted more than an hour and a half; no lawyer was present. He said Colonel Steele, after an initial interview a day earlier, had come to his office the morning of Feb. 23, then returned at 4:30 p.m., agitated and wanting to talk. Over the course of the interrogations, according to a report by Mr. Nocella, Colonel Steele provided a blunt confession.
“What I have done is wrong,” the report quoted him saying. “I am guilty. I will lose my commission for this.”
His appointed military defense lawyers did not dispute the substance of his confession. Capt. Yolanda McCray, one of the lawyers, instead tried to get Mr. Nocella to acknowledge that Colonel Steele did not indicate which accusation or accusations he had confessed to.
Under questioning from Captain McCray, Mr. Nocella also said that he knew of only one case in which Colonel Steele had been seen letting detainees use his cellphone, and that involved juveniles calling their parents.
Mr. Nocella also said the high-value detainee’s daughter had told him there was no improper relationship between them despite the exchange of two to three e-mail messages a week. The gift that Colonel Steele gave her, which contributed to the charge of fraternization, was architectural software “for her studies.”
“It was software she could not obtain in Iraq,” he said.
With many of the other charges, the defense lawyers tried to show that Colonel Steele had acted roughly within the prison’s accepted norms. Brig. Gen. Kevin R. McBride, the commander of a military police brigade that oversaw detention facilities, said the purchase of Cuban cigars for Mr. Hussein had been a practice approved by the command for more than a year.
Maj. Gen. John D. Gardner, deputy commanding general of detainee operations in Iraq, acknowledged that some senior Baath Party officials had been allowed to tend gardens to help ease the tedium of their stay, but said that he did not know about the cigar purchases. The Americans also paid for dry cleaning in the case of detainees appearing in court, and televisions so they could watch news programs selected by the military, he said.
Some lawyers for detainees at Camp Cropper said Colonel Steele may have been the target of ire from some of the military’s top commanders because he did not favor rougher treatment for prisoners.
“In the last year, Steele developed a strong reputation for protecting prisoners and attempting to improve the conditions of their incarceration — including greater flexibility in family visits and interaction,” said Scott Horton, a law professor at Columbia University who represented a CBS cameraman held at Camp Cropper.
But some of the evidence against Colonel Steele may prove harder to dismiss as a result simply of compassion. It emerged at the hearing that he was reprimanded at Camp Cropper for intimidating tower guards with a pistol.
Investigators also said they found 18,000 classified documents on two computers, in a briefcase and elsewhere at his workspace and living quarters on a sprawling base in Baghdad, though they did not suggest that he had passed any of the documents to unauthorized people.
With the evidentiary hearing complete, the investigating officer, Col. Elizabeth Fleming, will decide if there is cause to recommend that the case proceed to a court-martial, which would have to be approved by Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the commander of daily operations in Iraq. The decisions usually take anywhere from days to months.
May 2, 2007
By Damien Cave
BAGHDAD, May 1 — A senior commander in the American military’s main detention center here lent prisoners his government cellphone, regularly exchanged e-mail messages with the daughter of a high-value detainee and used public funds to supply Saddam Hussein with hair dye and Cuban cigars, investigators said at a military hearing on Tuesday.
Lt. Col. William H. Steele, 51, a reservist from Prince George, Va., faces nine charges relating to his command at the detention center, Camp Cropper, from October 2005 to October 2006. The suspected cellphone misuse led to an accusation of “aiding the enemy” — potentially a capital offense. But testimony by military investigators at the second and last day of the hearing suggested that the cellphone issue was a sign of Colonel Steele’s lenient approach to detention.
Colonel Steele, the testimony showed, took pride in trying to make Camp Cropper the antithesis of Abu Ghraib, where prisoners were tortured and abused. One military investigator said Colonel Steele told him he was willing to “do things under the table” to complete his mission.
Prosecutors at the hearing on Tuesday seemed intent on showing that he had gone too far, and had lost sight of how to manage the dangerous men he was guarding.
“Did he express empathy toward high-value detainees and say he understood the personal anguish they were under and wanted to make their lives better?” one of the government’s lawyers asked Special Agent John Nocella, a counterintelligence investigator who interrogated Colonel Steele in February.
“Yes,” Mr. Nocella said.
Did Colonel Steele say that some detainees were innocent “and should be allowed as many privileges as possible?” asked one of the prosecutors.
“Yes, he did,” Mr. Nocella said.
He added that Colonel Steele was aware that phone calls by detainees were to be made only on authorized phones with an interpreter and an American soldier present, but that he skirted those rules when there were no appropriate phones available.
Mr. Nocella said Colonel Steele’s admission was made during questioning in Iraq by several agents that lasted more than an hour and a half; no lawyer was present. He said Colonel Steele, after an initial interview a day earlier, had come to his office the morning of Feb. 23, then returned at 4:30 p.m., agitated and wanting to talk. Over the course of the interrogations, according to a report by Mr. Nocella, Colonel Steele provided a blunt confession.
“What I have done is wrong,” the report quoted him saying. “I am guilty. I will lose my commission for this.”
His appointed military defense lawyers did not dispute the substance of his confession. Capt. Yolanda McCray, one of the lawyers, instead tried to get Mr. Nocella to acknowledge that Colonel Steele did not indicate which accusation or accusations he had confessed to.
Under questioning from Captain McCray, Mr. Nocella also said that he knew of only one case in which Colonel Steele had been seen letting detainees use his cellphone, and that involved juveniles calling their parents.
Mr. Nocella also said the high-value detainee’s daughter had told him there was no improper relationship between them despite the exchange of two to three e-mail messages a week. The gift that Colonel Steele gave her, which contributed to the charge of fraternization, was architectural software “for her studies.”
“It was software she could not obtain in Iraq,” he said.
With many of the other charges, the defense lawyers tried to show that Colonel Steele had acted roughly within the prison’s accepted norms. Brig. Gen. Kevin R. McBride, the commander of a military police brigade that oversaw detention facilities, said the purchase of Cuban cigars for Mr. Hussein had been a practice approved by the command for more than a year.
Maj. Gen. John D. Gardner, deputy commanding general of detainee operations in Iraq, acknowledged that some senior Baath Party officials had been allowed to tend gardens to help ease the tedium of their stay, but said that he did not know about the cigar purchases. The Americans also paid for dry cleaning in the case of detainees appearing in court, and televisions so they could watch news programs selected by the military, he said.
Some lawyers for detainees at Camp Cropper said Colonel Steele may have been the target of ire from some of the military’s top commanders because he did not favor rougher treatment for prisoners.
“In the last year, Steele developed a strong reputation for protecting prisoners and attempting to improve the conditions of their incarceration — including greater flexibility in family visits and interaction,” said Scott Horton, a law professor at Columbia University who represented a CBS cameraman held at Camp Cropper.
But some of the evidence against Colonel Steele may prove harder to dismiss as a result simply of compassion. It emerged at the hearing that he was reprimanded at Camp Cropper for intimidating tower guards with a pistol.
Investigators also said they found 18,000 classified documents on two computers, in a briefcase and elsewhere at his workspace and living quarters on a sprawling base in Baghdad, though they did not suggest that he had passed any of the documents to unauthorized people.
With the evidentiary hearing complete, the investigating officer, Col. Elizabeth Fleming, will decide if there is cause to recommend that the case proceed to a court-martial, which would have to be approved by Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the commander of daily operations in Iraq. The decisions usually take anywhere from days to months.