"Will Horizontally Striped Prison Jumpsuits Make The Bushies Look Fat?" OR "Desperately Seeking Rummy"

[Time: The plaintiffs in the case include 11 Iraqis who were prisoners at Abu Ghraib, as well as Mohammad al-Qahtani, a Saudi held at Guantanamo, whom the U.S. has identified as the so-called "20th hijacker" and a would-be participant in the 9/11 hijackings. As TIME first reported in June 2005, Qahtani underwent a "special interrogation plan," personally approved by Rumsfeld, which the U.S. says produced valuable intelligence. But to obtain it, according to the log of his interrogation and government reports, Qahtani was subjected to forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, prolonged stress positions, sleep deprivation and other controversial interrogation techniques.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say that one of the witnesses who will testify on their behalf is former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the one-time commander of all U.S. military prisons in Iraq. Karpinski — who the lawyers say will be in Germany next week to publicly address her accusations in the case — has issued a written statement to accompany the legal filing, which says, in part: "It was clear the knowledge and responsibility [for what happened at Abu Ghraib] goes all the way to the top of the chain of command to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ."]

When the first noticed tales of grave prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison first hit the fan a couple years back, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's Pentagon could barely contain its glee as it pointed to and hung out to dry the U.S. (and female) head of the prison, Janice Karpinski. Unlike the loyalist Bushies, Karpinski made herself available to the media for often very tough questions about what went on there in Iraq with the likes of "leash girl" Lindy England and company.

Once the Bushies were done demeaning Karpinski in every form possible, they then went after the lowly soldiers, denying there was any Pentagon-led effort to encourage prisoner abuse while calling the soldier guards and interrogators as "a few bad apples." These Bushies would curl their lips and sniff very dismissively at even the slightest hint that they as top brass should be held accountable for any of it, much less investigated for war crimes.

Rumsfeld seemed to take special umbrage at such suggestions; he also swiftly and forcefully insisted that (to paraphrase) "what overly sensitive liberals call torture is anything but." For example, having a prisoner forced to stand on his head for an hour or having an M-16 shoved up a prisoner's ass was hardly torture, ruled Rummy.

But with Rumsfeld's resignation (which many outlets still pointedly refer to "Rumsfeld's dismissal just 12 hours after the last of the U.S. mid-term election votes were counted, comes an interesting and much needed shift in the same old Bushist song lyrics.

First and foremost: when Rumsfeld leaves his post, his immunity from possible prosecution for such behavior flies out the window. Second, many like Karpinski - long eager to tell their stories but often forced by the military not to do so - may now have both the right AND the responsibility to do so. Such folks have borne the brunt of such investigations up until now.

Second, it's not just Democrats or "peaceniks" who want a full investigation into what went on at Abu Ghraib and continues to go one each and every day at Guantanamoo Bay (Gitmo) in Cuba, as well as perhaps at scores of "secret" CIA and military prisons around the world, such as those in Syria where there has been much documented abuse. Syria, of course, is one of Bush's supposed "axis of evil" nations; Syria is BAD BAD BAD when it suits the Bushies' arguments while a fine and dandy place to send "disappeared" people for waterboarding and worse.

Now Time Magazine along with other news publications report that a lawsuit filed in Germany may lead to charges being sought against not just Rumsfeld but also U.S. Attorney General and big Bush loyalist Albert Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet. Read more here.