The Courtmartial of Colonel Steele

By Scott Horton

The detention process in Iraq has whipped up a storm of controversy surrounding the abuse of detainees. Alex Gibney’s documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side, which premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival tomorrow evening, will lay out the story in a compelling way—showing clearly that the abuse of detainees (and ultimately the death in detention of 104 of them) is linked directly to policies adopted at the top of the Government, starting in the office of Vice President Cheney. You can read my comments and those of others involved in the project, including Colonel Larry Wilkerson, in this morning’s Washington Post.

Today there is a report of a courtmartial which is being initiated in Iraq. It serves to underscore the message of official complicity in the abuse of prisoners in the most compelling way. By bringing charges, command authority sends a message about the sort of treatment it wants for detainees. Note that no senior office was ever court-martialed for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Camp Cropper, Volturna and other facilities in Iraq—notwithstanding that criminal mistreatment of prisoners was amply documented and it stretched over a period of years. In the judgment of U.S. prosecutors at the end of World War II, this fact pattern was sufficient to justify sending a group of Japanese generals to their death.

Today’s charges are extremely revealing. Lt. Col. William H. Steele, the commander of the MPs at the Camp Cropper detention facility, is being charged with “aiding the enemy.” What’s the basis of the complaint? It turns out that he committed the offense of being nice to the detainees, and that’s punishable with a potential death sentence.

After reading this account when it came online yesterday, I took some time to check in with some of the contacts I developed from dealing with the Iraqi detention system when I was in Baghdad last year. Here’s what I heard. 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.”

So, this case fits a consistent pattern: as with Captain Ian Fishback and Chaplain James Yee—expressing any degree of sympathy for the detainees, and insisting that the rules to protect them be enforced will get you into a heap of trouble. Maybe even the death sentence, it now turns out. I was amazed looking at the charges, which seem to replicate the bogus claims brought against Chaplain Yee down to the tiniest details. Indeed, the charges are oozing with malice.

This case screams out as a severe abuse of military prosecutorial authority. It is sending a clear message to those running the detention camps. That message is the one that Major General Geoffrey Miller shouted at the guards at Abu Ghraib—“Treat them like dogs!” Miller got a promotion and a medal. Juxtapose his treatment with the hell that is being brought down on Colonel Steele and you get a very good sense of the demonic forces that have been unleashed within today’s Army. It’s time for the Armed Services Committee to shine a very bright light on this entire process and ascertain exactly who in the chain of command gave the directions for the persecution of Colonel Steele.