Abu Ghraib picture begins to fill in

"These are comprehensive reports," says a Pentagon official who requested anonymity. "These are further reflections of the commitment to find out the complete story of Abu Ghraib and to take a good hard look at detention operations as a whole."

Though the reports may not assign personal culpability to higher-ranking members of the military, it is still possible that more service members, including officers, will face charges.

Col. Thomas Pappas, the officer in charge of military intelligence at the Abu Ghraib prison, exercised his Fifth Amendment rights and did not testify for the Army investigation run by General Fay, for instance.

The role that intelligence personnel played in setting rules and urging the softening up of prisoners is one of the key issues determining culpability at Abu Ghraib.

Without addressing the case of Colonel Pappas specifically, one military expert says it's possible there are more prosecutorial shoes to drop.

"I wouldn't be at all surprised to see senior officials charged under Article 92, dereliction of duty," says Mary Hall, a former Navy judge and appeals attorney in the Washington area.

Another key issue is the role of Reserve personnel. An Army Reserve general who was in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison and who was relieved of command and admonished in January has continued to assert that her soldiers were ill-trained to handle the role of jailers and completely unprepared to face the level of danger caused by insurgent attacks.

To this point, the whole affair has shown both the worst and best sides of the US involvement in Iraq, according to one expert.

The worst aspects are obvious - the abuses themselves. The pictures of laughing Americans manipulating Iraqis for their apparent amusement have done incalculable damage to US prestige in Muslim countries, if not the world at large.

The good aspects, on the other hand, are the investigations themselves. Such quick self-criticism isn't common in much of the rest of the world, notes Mr. Hannum of the Fletcher School.

The British, for example, have had a less-than-stellar record of investigating and punishing abuses carried out by British personnel in Northern Ireland.

That said, the US may still have some way to go before the mess is cleaned up.

"It will be a challenge to the US to try to sell these investigations to the Iraqi people as well as the American people as being an appropriate response," says Hannum.

And its possible that the Abu Ghraib abuses are simply the tip of a larger problem. The US is still looking at alleged abuses that occurred in Afghanistan, as well as the American detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Four suspected Al Qaeda terrorists face military tribunals this week at Guantanamo. Initial hearings begin Tuesday.

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