It isn't surprising that you and several Democrat Senators are calling for Rumsfeld's resignation. Hell, they've been calling for his resignation over one thing or another for years. This is just the latest cause de jour.

The question is, why should Rumsfeld resign? Did he mistreat the prisoners? No. Did he authorize this mistreatment of prisoners? No. Did the military cover up the story? According to this, no.

For a sense of proportion, let's rehearse the timeline here. While some accusations of abuse go back to 2002 in Afghanistan, the incidents at Abu Ghraib that triggered this week's news occurred last autumn. They came to light through the chain of command in Iraq on January 13. An Army criminal probe began a day later. Two days after that, the U.S. Central Command disclosed in a press release that "an investigation has been initiated into reported incidents of detainee abuse at a Coalition Forces detention facility." By March 20, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt was able to announce in Baghdad that criminal charges had been brought against six soldiers in the probe.

By the end of January, meanwhile, Major General Antonio Taguba was appointed to conduct his separate "administrative" probe of procedures at Abu Ghraib. It is his report, complete with its incriminating photos, that is the basis for the past week's news reports. The press didn't break this story based on months of sleuthing but was served up the results of the Army's own investigation.

By February, the Secretary of the Army had ordered the service's inspector general to assess the doctrine and training for detention operations within all of CentCom. A month after that, another probe began into Army Reserve training, especially military police and intelligence. Those reports will presumably also be leaked and reported on, or at least they will be if they reach negative conclusions.

This is a cover-up? Unlike the Catholic bishops, some corporate boards and the editors of the New York Times or USA Today, the military brass did not dismiss early allegations of bad behavior. Instead, it established reviews and procedures that have uncovered the very details that are now used by critics to indict the Pentagon "system." It has done so, moreover, amid a war against a deadly insurgency in which interrogation to gain good intelligence is critical to victory--and to saving American lives.

None of this is to dismiss or rationalize the abuse reports. Accountability has to run beyond the soldiers immediately responsible and up the Army and intelligence chains of command. The Abu Ghraib procedures were clearly inadequate to a situation in which interrogators were given so much control over the fates of individual prisoners. Especially in a war on terror that will be long and require effective interrogation, this is unacceptable.

Reprimands have already been issued and careers ended, but courts martial can't be ruled out. President Bush's explanation to Arab media yesterday may help our public image, especially given that their own governments rarely admit mistakes. But the best way to impress Iraqis about U.S. purposes is to show that Americans guilty of abuse are being punished, and with more than letters of reprimand.

The investigation was classified Secret Noforn (no release to foreign nationals), but they released it yesterday without even redacting any part of it. If I were to post such a classified document (on any subject), I'd lose my clearance and job before the day was done.

This is now a criminal matter. As it is, those accused will find it impossible to get a fair trial due to improper command influence from the President on down. However, unless they have some extraordinary evidence of being ordered to do those things by intelligence officials (as the general said), the smartest thing they could do is to plead guilty and stupid at their trials. Even if they were ordered to do those things (seems unlikely), they're still screwed because it's the responsibility of everyone in the military to refuse an unlawful order, and mistreating prisoners definitely qualifies as unlawful under the UCMJ and the Geneva Convention.

Those who did these terrible things are screwed. That's how it should be.