If German soldiers in Afghanistan would be found to have acted in a similar way and if that was known in the higher command and held secret for months then the secretary (minister) of defense would have resigned within 3 days. For either he would have known and not acted immediately or he doesn't really lead the command structure in the sense that they inform him of important things. Both ways, he'd be out immediately. Rumsfeld's wiggling about not having read the report but 'taken in' in the sense of not really understanding what was on the paper he looked at makes a very bad impression.

That is the real scandal. In a big army being in a nasty fight bad things will happen now and then, locally restricted and by a few persons. Regrettable, but minor in the perspective of such a war (and I still do think what the Americans have done is small in comparison to their enemies's deeds). So if what has happened would have happened once or twice or a bit more often by individual soldiers and would be found out now follwed by quick action of the command, then the blame for the command and Rumsfeld would be minor. But that quite clearly is not the case.

Wolfgang