By TChris

John Fugh, a retired major general and former judge advocate general, has criticized the decision of military prosecutors to pursue minor charges against Capt. James J. Yee, the Muslim chaplain who was initially viewed as a suspect in an espionage ring at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay. Yee, who spent 76 days in solitary confinement (often in leg irons and manacles) prior to his release on Dec. 8, has been charged with mishandling classified information, as well as adultery and keeping pornography on his government computer.

According to General Fugh, "This whole thing makes the military prosecutors look ridiculous."

"It certainly seems like they couldn't get him on what they first thought they had," General Fugh said, "so they said, `Let's get the son of a gun on something.'"

General Fugh, who has played no role in the prosecution or the defense of Captain Yee, said, "Adding these Mickey Mouse charges just makes them look dumb, in my mind."

Interviews conducted by The New York Times suggest a number of events that "led the military ever deeper into its prosecution," including assigning inexperienced reservists to act as counterintelligence officers at the camp, confusion about whether documents were or were not classified, and an atmosphere of suspicion that surrounded the decision to allow Muslims and Arab-Americans to be involved in camp operations. The evidence of Captain Yee's adultery and the pornography on his computer were discovered as the military was tying to strengthen its case for espionage. The espionage theory was not borne out, and the most serious charges against Air Force translator Ahmad I. al-Halabi (whose weekly dinners with Capt. Yee apparently led to Yee's arrest), once viewed as the central figure in a plot to pass secrets to a foreign government, have been dropped.