US officer called Iraqi translator 'my beautiful', probe hears

[Barrett808]

Source: AFP

US officer called Iraqi translator 'my beautiful', probe hears
by Benoit Fink

BAGHDAD (AFP) - A US officer accused of "aiding the enemy" while running a prison camp in Iraq kept a stash of pornography and called his translator "my beautiful," a military investigation panel heard Monday.

Lieutenant Colonel William Steele -- accused of giving a cellphone to a detainee and fraternising with his daughter -- appeared before a military board in a camp outside Baghdad to find out whether he will face court martial.

If he is sent for trial and convicted on the most serious charge -- that of helping America's enemies -- he could face the death penalty.

Prior to his arrest, Steele's 451st Military Police Detachment ran a jail in Camp Cropper, a US base outside Baghdad not far from Camp Victory, where his "Article 32 Hearing" began on Monday.

For the previous two months he had been held at a military camp in Kuwait.

Reporters were barred from much of the hearing, but were allowed in to hear an investigator describe what he found on Steele's computer when military police searched his living quarters and office.

Iraq camp chief gave computer files: hearing
By Paul Tait

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq (Reuters) - A former U.S. detention facility commander in Iraq who is accused of aiding the enemy gave a box of computer programs to a detainee's daughter, a military investigation heard on Monday.

The investigation is being held to determine whether Lieutenant-Colonel William Steele, former commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment and in charge of detention facilities at Camp Cropper, should face a court-martial.

Insurgents and former senior aides to Saddam Hussein are held at the camp, near Baghdad international airport.

Steele is accused of fraternizing with a detainee's daughter, having an improper relationship with a translator, providing unmonitored mobile phones to prisoners, unauthorized possession of classified information and keeping pornographic videos.

Steele, thin and wearing wire-rimmed spectacles, only spoke to answer whether he understood the nature of the investigation at a U.S. military base near Baghdad's airport.

Lieutenant-Colonel Quinten Crank, whose unit took over from Steele's on October 5., said Steele later returned during a family visitation day after phoning to say he had "college material" for a detainee's daughter.

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070430/ts_nm/iraq_commander_investigation_dc

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070430/wl_afp/iraqmilitaryustrial

[keopeli]

1. What? Am I missing something? Where's the crime?

I must be missing something. The guy is being considered a traitor for being nice to the prisoners basically, maybe even a little romance with a translator. I suppose if he had tortured the prisoners, he would have been a hero. But, since he was nice to their children and had a penchant for porn, he's being hung.

I hope I'm missing something...

[TheWraith]

3. Well, "fraternizing" with the daughter in this case almost certainly means "banging..."

And if those computer programs he provided the girl were classified, that would be a problem. Other than that, it's really difficult to read much past the text here. It could be serious or nothing at all.

[pokercat999]

7. If the prisoners were actual insurgents (unlikely given

our track record) I guess giving them a cell phone to contact their buddies would be a bad idea. But heaven forbid he should have a relationship with an Iraqi woman.:spank:

[TheWraith]

8. It's a question of what actually happened, which we don't know.

Maybe he had a perfectly innocent relationship, sexual or not, with a girl who happened to be the daughter of a detainee, and/or even sympathy for someone who may have been detained without reason.

On the other hand, it's also possible that he was exploiting his position in order to compel the girl to sleep with him, or that she was manipulating him in order to get favors for her father and herself. Like I said, we really have only a skeletal framework of facts, not enough to base any conclusions on. He could be a wonderful person unjustly accused, an emotionally manipulated fool, or a power-drunk bastard.

[pokercat999]

12. You're correct of course. One thing I do know

he/we shouldn't be in Iraq at all.

[Ian David]

2. Isn't outing Vallerie Plame considered "aiding the enemy"? n/t

[iverglas]

4. it would be nice to think someone was being humane

but it's more likely he was being exploitive, is how I'd read between the lines.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04302007/news/nationalnews/treason_rap_gi_abused_stepson_nationalnews_melissa_jane_kronfeld_and_eric_lenkowitz.htm
-- not one's favourite source, but the facts reported seem to be matters of record

April 30, 2007 -- The Army commander who faces a possible death sentence in Iraq on a treason charge has been in legal hot water before - for aggravated child abuse and resisting arrest, The Post has learned.

Lt. Col. William Steele, 51, and his wife lost custody of the wife's then-11-year-old son after a long court battle revealed that the couple denied the boy food and furniture and routinely locked him out of the family home, sources close to the case said.


http://www.andnetwork.com/index?service=direct/0/Home/recent.fullStory&sp=l316031

Lt. Col. Quentin Crank, whose military police unit took over for Col. Steele at Camp Cropper in October 2006, said the gifts were given after Col. Steele had moved on to another assignment in Iraq, but the detainee was outraged by the personal contact and told American officials that Col. Steele was trying to supplant him in the role of father.


If it's what it smells like to me, one might like to see him being charged with something along the lines of abusing the enemy, not aiding it.

[momster]

5. Crank and Steele?

Are those their real names?

[kurth]

6. Ahhhhh, Love

And Bullets.

[Eugene]

9. Iraq camp chief held "devastating" material: hearing

Source: Reuters

Iraq camp chief held "devastating" material: hearing

By Paul Tait
24 minutes ago

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq (Reuters) - Classified information wrongly
kept by the former head of a detention center holding members of
Saddam Hussein's regime could have been devastating to the U.S.
army in Iraq, an investigation heard on Tuesday.

Special Agent Thomas Barnes, the U.S. military's senior fraud
investigator for Iraq and Afghanistan, said he was shocked by
the amount of classified material found in the living quarters
of Lieutenant-Colonel William Steele.

-snip-

"In my opinion the documents that were found were extremely
sensitive to the army's mission in Iraq. I believe if those
documents were compromised it could have been devastating."

-snip-

Special Agent John Nocella was asked by the prosecution about
privileges given to detainees in "Compound Five" at Camp Cropper,
where detainees regarded as strategically significant were held,
including use of Steele's personal cell phone.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070501/ts_nm/iraq_commander_investigation_dc_2

[Barrett808]

10. Hearing: Iraq camp chief held "devastating" material

Iraq camp chief held "devastating" material -hearing
By Paul Tait

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq, May 1 (Reuters) - Classified information wrongly kept by the former head of a detention centre holding members of Saddam Hussein's regime could have been devastating to the U.S. army in Iraq, an investigation heard on Tuesday.

Special Agent Thomas Barnes, the U.S. military's senior fraud investigator for Iraq and Afghanistan, said he was shocked by the amount of classified material found in the living quarters of Lieutenant-Colonel William Steele.

Steele is the former commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment at Camp Cropper, the detention centre near Baghdad airport where "high-value detainees" are among 3,000 people held and where Saddam spent his last days before his execution.

He faces nine charges, including aiding the enemy by providing an unmonitored cell phone to detainees, at a military investigation to decide whether he should face a court-martial.

Barnes said he led a search of Steele's living quarters at Camp Cropper on Feb. 22. Up to 65 documents were found in a briefcase, as well as piles of CD-Roms.

"I'd never seen that amount of classified material not properly stored, not properly labeled and not properly protected," Barnes told the investigation by telephone from the United States.

"In my opinion the documents that were found were extremely sensitive to the army's mission in Iraq. I believe if those documents were compromised it could have been devastating."

(more)

http://mobile.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/B221557.htm

[Barrett808]

11. Hearing: US camp officer "empathised" with detainees

US camp officer "empathised" with detainees
By Paul Tait

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq, May 1 (Reuters) - A former commander of a U.S. detention centre holding members of Saddam Hussein's regime expressed empathy for detainees and said he wanted to make their lives better, an investigation heard on Tuesday.

Lieutenant-Colonel William Steele, former commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment, faces nine charges, including aiding the enemy by providing an unmonitored cell phone to detainees, at a military investigation to determine whether he should face a court-martial.

The investigation heard Steele was questioned by a special agent attached to the U.S. military's counter-intelligence directorate in Baghdad on Feb. 22, the same day Steele's quarters had been searched by military investigators.

Special Agent John Nocella was one of two agents who questioned Steele on Feb. 22 and again the next day, when he said Steele went to his office and said he had spoken to legal counsel and admitted his guilt.

"He said he had spoken to counsel, he knew what he'd done was wrong, he was guilty," Nocella said of the Feb. 23 conversation.

Nocella was asked by prosecutor Captain Michael Rizzotti about privileges given to detainees in "Compound Five" at Camp Cropper, where detainees who were regarded as being of strategic significance were held.

Asked by Rizzotti if during their initial Feb. 22 interview Steele expressed empathy towards high-value detainees because he understood their "personal anguish", Nocella said: "Yes, he did".

"Did he tell you he was a humanitarian and he felt compelled to make their lives better?" Rizzotti asked. "Yes, he did," Nocella replied.

(more)

http://mobile.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO161720.htm