When I first ran across the headline of a US Army member being held for aiding the enemy I thought it was a low-ranking enlisted man who was too young to understand what he did.

Instead, I find out it’s a US Army Lt. Col.!

BAGHDAD — A senior U.S. officer has been charged with nine offenses, including aiding the enemy and fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee while he commanded a military police detachment at an American detention facility near Baghdad, the military said Thursday.

Army Lt. Col. William H. Steele was accused of giving “aid to the enemy” by providing an unmonitored cell phone to detainees.

Steele was the commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment at Camp Cropper, a U.S. detention center on the western outskirts of Baghdad, when the offenses allegedly occurred between October 2005 and February, military spokesman Lt. Col. James Hutton said.

Steele was being held in Kuwait pending a grand jury investigation, Hutton said.

Steele also was charged with improperly marking classified information, failing to obey an order and failing to fulfill his obligations in the expenditure of funds, the military said.

Camp Cropper, located near the Baghdad airport, replaced the notorious Abu Ghraib prison as the main detention facility in the capital area.

I wouldn’t want to be the Lt. Col. if he gets convicted. He won’t see the light of day for many years.