During the court-martial proceedings for Abu Ghraib guards scheduled to begin later in the week, the exact role of military intelligence will get further scrutiny. Unsurprisingly, the debate at the center of the legal jockeying is about who controlled Abu Ghraib -- military intelligence or the military police. According to the statement he gave to investigators last January, Army Reservist Jeremy Sivits, who struck a plea-bargain agreement with the government and has agreed to testify against his fellow soldiers, acts of random violence were perpetrated on prisoners. He insists they did not come down as orders from above but were carried out by low-ranking personnel like Spc. Charles Graner, who reportedly punched prisoners unconscious, hit wounded detainees with baseball bats, and posed for photographs atop a pile of detainees.

But last week, Graner's attorney pointed a finger at military intelligence officers and private contractors as the ones who barked orders to M.P.'s, who were simply following those orders. Graner's attorney suggested that Sivits is implicating low-ranking soldiers as part of his plea agreement.

The part played by the private contractors at Abu Ghraib remains a mystery, as does their possible punishment. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, "persons serving with or accompanying an armed force in the field" are subject to the code "in time of war." That might cover the contractors, whose actions captured in photographs clearly violated the code. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces previously held that the military lacked jurisdiction over civilian employees of the Armed Forces during the Vietnam War because, the court ruled, the phrase "in time of war" contained in the code meant a war formally declared by Congress. The Vietnam War was never formally declared by Congress. Nor was the invasion of Iraq.

The unfolding investigations could take two parallel tracks. At some point soon the scandal will reach a decisive moment and either halt at the low-ranking M.P.'s or go up the chain.

For now, the White House finds itself losing allies among Republican senators as the bipartisan calls for further investigations continue. The administration cannot find support inside the military, either. "For military officers, this scandal is outrageously infuriating; it has tarnished everybody," says Ralph Peters, a retired Army intelligence officer and regular contributor to the reliably conservative New York Post editorial page. "The civilian side at the Pentagon, like Cambone -- they were the ones trying to cover this up, not the military. I believe Donald Rumsfeld needs to go because he has lost the trust and respect of the officer corps."

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