Krull-Schmidt Theorem for small profinite groups

We prove that every small profinite group can be decomposed into a direct product of indecomposable profinite groups, and that such a decomposition is unique up to order and isomorphisms of the components. We also investigate the cancellation property of some free pro- <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="script upper C"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi class="MJX-tex-caligraphic" mathvariant="script">C</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">\mathcal {C}</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> groups, and give a new criterion for a profinite group to be small.