A "bad apple?"

Speaking of Rumsfeld's legacy, for someone so exonerated by any number of Pentagon sponsored "investigations" of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, isn't it odd he'd take the equivalent of "the fifth?"

WASHINGTON - An Army general who was in charge of the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons has refused to testify against two soldiers accused of siccing dogs on Iraqi detainees.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller on Tuesday invoked the military's version of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the prosecutions of Sgts. Michael Smith and Santos Cardona. The two say they simply followed orders.

Miller's lawyer, Maj. Michelle Crawford, said he refused to testify because he had answered similar questions already in congressional hearings and other abuse cases.

But experts said Miller likely fears prosecution for ordering the use of dogs or he would help the soldiers by testifying.

"What's he afraid of if he's already answered the questions?" said Geoff Corn, a former Army prosecutor.

Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, called Miller's move "extremely rare."

A Texan fond of golf and ostrich-leather cowboy boots, Miller commanded the detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in 2003. During his tenure, he had Capt. James Yee, a Muslim chaplain wrongly suspected of espionage, jailed incommunicado for 76 days.

Pentagon brass later sent Miller to improve intelligence gathering at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and in 2004 he took over running the prison system.

I wonder if he's protecting not only his own ostrich-leather shod hide, but an entire chain-of-command?