Speaking of photos, soldiers and Bush war criminals, never forget Abu Ghraib

[ProSense]

The Abu Ghraib photos (warning extremely graphic)

Abu Ghraib head finds vindication in newly released memos

(CNN) -- She said she was a scapegoat. She said she was just following orders. She said she was demoted unfairly.

Now, retired Army Col. Janis Karpinski can say: I told you so.

Karpinski was one of two officers punished over the aggressive interrogations at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Pictures of detainees caused outrage around the world when they were leaked to the news media in May 2004. The photos showed naked prisoners stacked on top of each other or being threatened by dogs or hooded and wired up as if for electrocution.

Throughout the ordeal, Karpinski maintained that she and her troops were following interrogation guidelines approved by top brass. Today, Karpinski has found validation in a few Bush-era memos released last week by the Obama administration.

"The outrage was over the photographs, because the photographs were living color of what those top-secret memorandums authorized," Karpinski said in an interview Wednesday. "So, it is unfair ... the soldiers may have moved through system, but they never had a fair court-martial. Not any one of them, because they were condemned as one of the 'bad apples.' "

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A next wave of photos is not going to tip the scale to make our soldiers less safe.