Lynndie England says she's a scapegoat

[BurtWorm]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html#mustreads

"Just followed orders"

Lawyers for Army Pfc. Lynndie R. England say she has been a scapegoat for higher-ups who want to shirk responsibility for lawless behavior in U.S. military prisons in Iraq. The Washington Post reports that England's attorneys say she "was ordered by her superiors to pose with naked Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison ... so that the photos could be used to frighten and demoralize other prisoners. 'People told Pfc. England, 'Hold that leash,' told her to smile, so they can show the photos to subsequent prisoners,' said Carl S. McGuire, one member of a team of Denver-area lawyers defending England. The 21-year-old Army reservist, who was photographed holding a leash tied to the neck of a naked prisoner, faces a court-martial on 13 counts of misconduct."

"'They picked her to get the smallest, youngest, lowest-rank woman they could find, and that would increase the humiliation for an Iraqi man,' said Rose Mary Zapor, another member of the Denver-based legal team. In a news conference Monday night, England's attorneys also said that President Bush's public condemnation of the prison guards at Abu Ghraib makes it all but impossible for the accused soldiers to get a fair court-martial."