Rose Mary Zapor said Pfc. Lynndie England, a clerk at the Abu Ghraib prison, was "uncomfortable" with the orders but didn't know who to turn to. Zapor said the chain of command had been blurred at the prison, where private contractors worked with military personnel. Zapor told The Associated Press Tuesday she thinks the military decided to prosecute England, a 21-year-old Army reservist from West Virginia, because she was low-ranking and poor and because she was not a career soldier. "I don't think they expected the kind of defense that she's getting," said Zapor, who is working for free but trying to raise money for expenses. "I think they expected to offer her up as some sort of sacrificial lamb to the Arab countries." Zapor refused to say who ordered England to pose in the photographs. In one, she is shown smiling, cigarette in mouth, as she points at the genitals of a naked Iraqi. Another shows her holding a leash around the neck of a naked Iraqi man lying on his side, his face contorted. Zapor and co-counsel Giorgio Ra'shadd are seeking documents explaining the chain of command in the prison. They also want to know if the prisoners in the section where the photographs were taken were considered enemy combatants, like those held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. In that case, Zapor said, the Geneva Convention -- international rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war -- would not apply. While England had the right to refuse an unlawful order, Zapor said, if a civilian was giving orders it wouldn't be clear whether it was lawful. According to the Army general who first investigated abuse at the prison, control was transferred from Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski of the 800th Military Police Brigade to a military intelligence colonel. Zapor said the transfer created confusion just as soldiers were also getting the message that softening up prisoners might help get information that could stop a future terrorist attack. She did not elaborate. "You're set aside and told to do this. You're not hurting anybody, you do this one thing and are told this will save lives. I think 99 of 100 people would do that," she said.
AP Interview: Private in abuse scandal called 'sacrificial lamb'
DENVER (AP) - An attorney for one of the soldiers at the center of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal says her client was ordered to pose for now-infamous pictures during what was planned as a brief visit to see friends working as guards.
