Buried at the bottom of this story, a note that none of the officials who created the situaton that led to, and likely sanctioned, the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison will be called to testify in Lynndie England’s court martial.

At the start of the day, England’s lawyers lost their bid to require high-ranking generals to testify under oath about what went wrong at Abu Ghraib.

Earlier, without any public announcement, the hearing officer had ruled against requiring testimony from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and four other generals, including Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq at the time.

That became clear when defense lawyers asked Arn to reconsider a much shorter witness list on which the only high-level name was Karpinski’s.

“I don’t see the necessity of her testimony,” Arn said. She told the defense it could introduce a sworn statement by Karpinski.

The defense had asked for as many as 160 additional witnesses in England’s preliminary hearing. Arn approved only one — a sergeant who testified Monday that military intelligence operatives appeared to be orchestrating one particular episode of abuse.

Look, this girl did horrible things and shouldn’t get to use the “somebody else told me to do it” excuse. But for people like her to go under intense examination and Rumsfeld and Karpinski and Veep Go Fuck Yourself to get off without ever once being put on the stand is disgusting.

A.