The Wall Street Journal, whose right-wing views correspond closely to those of the administration, published an editorial Monday concluding that ?the US has probably gone too easy on most arrested Iraqis.?

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Knowledge of the nature of the abuses?and especially the politically toxic photographs?had been severely, and unusually, restricted. ?Everybody I?ve talked to said, ?We just didn?t know??not even in the J.C.S.,? one well-informed former intelligence official told me, emphasizing that he was referring to senior officials with whom such allegations would normally be shared. ?I haven?t talked to anybody on the inside who knew?nowhere. It?s got them scratching their heads.?

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The prison scandal also threatens to engulf the US General Geoffrey Miller, who has just been appointed the head of prisons in Iraq. Britain's Mail on Sunday, and Newsweek, both carry reports that much of the abuse at the Iraqi prisons started after a visit there late last summer by Gen. Miller, then in charge at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay.