Private England

She is, we should not forget, trying to save her own skin here, but what she had to say to a reporter seems to confirm what all of the experts have been positing; that is, the abuses did not arise fully loaded from the "6 morons" own perogative, but rather trickled down from above. From today's NY Times:

Guard Featured in Abuse Photos Says She Was Following Orders

By KIRK JOHNSON

DENVER, May 11 - Pfc. Lynndie R. England, a prison guard who has been prominent in photographs that led to an outcry over treatment of inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, said in a television interview broadcast Tuesday night that she acted on instructions from superior officers.

" 'That's a good tactic, keep it up,' " Private England, who is 21 years old, quoting commanding officers that she did not name as saying.

Asked about a photograph in which Private England was shown holding a leash attached to a chained and collared prisoner, she said the pose and the picture had been a result of direct orders.

"I was instructed by persons in higher ranks to stand there and hold this leash," she said in the interview, on KCNC-TV in Denver.

Ms. England, who is shown smiling and pointing to naked prisoners in some of photographs, said in the interview that she and the other soldiers in the pictures sometimes felt "kind of weird" about what they were asked to do. But she insisted that people in the "higher chain of command," knew all about it.

She was specifically told, she said of one photograph, to "stand there, give the thumbs up, and smile."

"To us, we were doing our jobs, which meant doing what we were told," she said at another point.

****

Asked if there were worse things that went on with prisoners at Abu Ghraib than the things shown in the photographs, Private England said yes. But then on the advice of her lawyers, she declined to say more.

She said her superiors had also wanted to keep the scandal within the military, "and not go public." There was an effort, she said, "to keep it hush-hush."

Mr. Maass described Ms. England as calm and confident during the hourlong interview, and in the portions that were broadcast on Tuesday, she showed little remorse.

"We didn't feel like we were doing things we weren't supposed to do," she said.....

Shades of Nuremberg.