Given the constant threat of danger, Karpinski is quick to admit that "nobody wants to stay in Iraq a day longer than he has to." But soldiers credit her for making their tours here a little more palatable.

"She's really caring," says Sgt. 1st Class Philip J. May of Pinellas Park. "She doesn't just talk the talk, she walks the walk."

So far, Karpinski has lost 15 people under her command to combat-related incidents, including a father killed by a mortar before he got to see his 2-month-old baby. She sends personal letters to the families and tries to attend all memorial services in Iraq.

Karpinski also does what she can to make life easier for troops on a day-to-day basis.

"I love my soldiers," she says. "When I ask if there's a problem or I hear of a problem, I make every effort to resolve it, and if I can't, I tell them why I can't or why the system can't. There's no lip service."

...

Karpinski notes, with pride, that female soldiers under her command do the same kind of work as men. "Over the last 10 years, (the Army) has become an example of how men and women of every religion and ethnic background are offered the same opportunities. Occasionally the good old boy network is in place, but it used to be 90 percent of the time. Now it's 10 percent of the time."

Yes, Democrat Demagogues are willing to sacrifice America�s national security, to trash the morale and honor of American soldiers risking their lives in Iraq, and lose the War on Terrorism in order to defeat George Bush in November -- so they use the abuse scandal as an excuse to go after Donald Rumsfeld. But be assured that if Karpinski was a man, demands for his accountability would be loud and clear.

It would be expected that if Karpinski were a man, he would have taken those demands like a man. But Karpinski is not and so has not. She has taken them like a woman -- whining, making excuses, and complaining that it�s not her fault, that she�s being "scapegoated."

I am waiting for feminists, or any woman who is simply proud of being female, to denounce Janis Karpinski as reinforcing the negative stereotype of women unable to accept responsibility, and humiliating her gender worse than were the Abu Ghraib prisoners under her jurisdiction.

In fact, we owe the entire Abu Ghraib scandal to the leadership failure and gross incompetence of Janis Karpinski -- and to the fear of her superiors to do anything about her ineptitude because she was a woman. She should have been relieved of her command last summer but was not.

Near the town of Mahawil in southern Iraq, U.S. Marines uncovered a mass grave site holding the remains of some 15,000 Iraqis. They were slaughtered for taking part in the Shia uprising against Saddam in the early 1990s. Saddam�s agent responsible for conducting the mass killings was Mohammed Jawad Anayfas; the grave site is on land owned by him.

In July 2003, Anayfas was captured by US forces and turned over to the Military Police Brigade under Karpinski�s command. The Brigade Headquarters managed to lose his paperwork -- so instead of contacting her superiors, Karpinski ordered Anayfas set free.

Soon thereafter, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz came to Iraq and visited the Mahawil gravesite, where he was informed by Marine Lt. Gen. James Conway how outraged the local Iraqis were over Anayfas� release. Visibly upset, Wolfowitz vowed Anayfas would be recaptured and tried as a war criminal. Anayfas is still at large and Karpinski received no reprimand.

When confronted by the Iraqi public outcry -- for Anayfas was only one of several war criminals whose paperwork was lost and she released-- Karpinski proceeded to evade responsibility and fabricated an entire string of deceptive excuses. Just like she is doing now.

The Iraqis said American forces had squandered opportunities to capture suspected executioners. The military recently arrested Muhammad Juwad Anayfas, a tribal sheik who officials said owned this field and took part in the killings. But his American jailers mistakenly set him free in a paperwork debacle that dealt the military a major embarrassment.

According to military sources, Karpinski was caught shoplifting a $22 bottle of perfume from a military department store -- or PX -- at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.

When CBS News asked her about it, she said it never happened.

When CBS' Martin asked if Karpinski denied she was ever arrested or picked up in the MacDill Air Force Base store for shoplifting, she responded, "That's correct."

Sources say an Air Force report details the shoplifting incident, but Pentagon officials refuse all comment, saying that would violate Karpinski's rights under the Privacy Act.

Karpinski says if such a document exists, it's a forgery designed to discredit her for speaking out.

Karpinski was a colonel at the time of the alleged shoplifting, but when she showed Defense Secretary Rumsfeld around Abu Ghraib, she was wearing the one star of a brigadier general.

The Army is investigating how -- despite the shoplifting report -- she was promoted and placed in command of all the prisons in Iraq.

Sources say Karpinski was able to go into counseling and do community service because she was a first-time offender and the dollar amount was so small. That apparently kept the incident out of court records and her service file.