"You can't have a one-person conspiracy"

The Abu Ghraib torture case will not end with a few low-ranking soldiers being compelled to give guilty pleas. A military judge, colonel James Pohl, rejected Pfc. Lynndie England's guilty plea today after testimony made it impossible to believe that she and a private, Charles Graner, had conspired to commit torture. England had testified that the photos which made the world aware of the torture which was being committed were made on personal initiative, while Graner testified that he had ordered her to make the photos because they "had a legitimate training use for guards." Pohl took into consideration the conflicting stories of the "conspirators" and rejected the guilty plea, observing: "You can't have a one-person conspiracy."

The story of a few soldiers taking over a prison to commit torture was not believable to the judge, and the clear implication is that the torture had to be part of a policy. That does not mean that the high-ranking military and political officials responsible for making torture a policy will be prosecuted, only that the evidence now shows that they should be.