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The photographs of her holding a naked Iraqi detainee on a dog leash, pointing at the genitals of a prisoner forced to masturbate for the cameras and grinning beside a pyramid of naked prisoners shocked the nation and exposed to the world the U.S. military's abusive practices in one of Saddam Hussein's former torture chambers. But the guilty plea by England - which will guarantee her at least 30 months of prison time - and the conviction and sentencing of eight other low-ranking soldiers should not end the search for accountability in this sorry episode.

A year ago on "Meet the Press," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, "we just don't want a bunch of privates and sergeants to be the scapegoats here." Yet, so far, that's almost exactly what has happened.

Brig. Gen. Janice Karpinski, the reserve officer in charge of Abu Ghraib and two other Iraqi prisons, was relieved of her command when the scandal broke. Otherwise, only a handful of lower-ranking enlisted personnel have been disciplined or charged.

The Army inspector general recently issued a report exonerating the highest-ranking officers in Iraq and essentially closing the book on any official investigations.

During testimony, England - undoubtedly anxious to have her plea deal accepted - backed away from her earlier contention that military intelligence officials had instructed Abu Ghraib guards to "soften up" detainees to prepare them for interrogation.

But an apparently forgotten report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba concludes that, in fact, the "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" at Abu Ghraib were efforts to "set the conditions" for interrogations - and done at the request of military intelligence officials put in charge of the facility.

Yet giving intelligence officers tactical control of a prison facility was, itself, a breach of Army regulations.

No one should forget, either, that the problems weren't confined to Abu Ghraib. Similar abuse was heaped upon prisoners detained by U.S. forces at Guantanamo Bay and in Afghanistan.

No matter what official investigations have concluded, a repugnant de facto policy of abuse emerged from widespread failure in moral leadership.

This is not to condone or excuse the actions of people like England. Whether she was following orders or succumbing to peer pressure, her actions were wrong.

But she is not alone.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was wrong in his previous role as White House counsel when he wrote a memo that sought to find legal justifications to permit the use of torture in interrogations against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, while finding the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and "obsolete."

Gonzales, though, was himself only attempting to find legal cover for the attitudes of both Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush, who didn't want to be restrained by the niceties of international law.

England and her fellow soldiers are the ones going to prison. But true accountability clearly lies much further up the chain of command.