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Escaping blame for Abu Ghraib
SOLDIERS face jail. Commanders get 15-gun salutes. Soldiers are pilloried. White House officials are promoted. The cost of hypocrisy in the billowing prison abuse scandal has not mattered much up to now. Tomorrow we might care a lot more. The next victim of the hypocrisy could be you or me.

This week there was a hearing for Lynndie England, the soldier who became the face of Abu Ghraib for two photos, one in which she held a naked Iraqi prisoner by a leash and a second in which she smiled while pointing at the genitals of another detainee.

Her lawyers want the photos thrown out as evidence, saying she was pressured to pose for them by superior officers. Lawyers for the Army, of course, deny this. If England is convicted, she could get up to 38 years in prison. Another hearing was scheduled this week for three soldiers accused of smothering an Iraqi general to death in an interrogation. They may get life behind bars.

Superiors dream of adding stars to their bars. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander in Iraq during the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, returned to his base in Germany in October to a 15-gun salute. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz praised Sanchez on behalf of President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his "courage, his perseverance, and his concern for his troops." Sanchez was passed over for one possible four-star promotion in the wake of Abu Ghraib. But the Los Angeles Times reported later in October that Rumsfeld and Richard Meyers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, still want to make him a four-star general despite Army reports indicating that Sanchez approved of controversial interrogation tactics and did not move quickly to halt abuse....