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Since Operation Enduring Freedom began in October 2001, the U.S. has handled about 50,000 detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq and other venues of the war on terror. Among those, about 300 allegations of abuse have arisen. And as of this month 155 investigations have resulted in 66 substantiated cases of mistreatment. Only about a third of those cases were related to interrogation, while another third happened at the point of capture, "frequently under uncertain, dangerous and violent circumstances."

So notes Tuesday's report from the Independent Panel to Review DOD Detention Operations, empowered in May by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and chaired by former Pentagon chief James Schlesinger. The report offers invaluable perspective on the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib and is devastating to those who've sought to pin blame on an alleged culture of lawlessness going all the way to the top of the Bush Administration. John Kerry must be even more disoriented by the Swift boat story than he appears if he thinks now's the time to call for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation.

Teeing off two reports detailing abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Senator John Kerry on Wednesday renewed his call for Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to resign, citing the need for "accountability that runs through the civilian command."

"It's not just the little person at the bottom who ought to pay the price of responsibility," Mr. Kerry told union members at a steamfitters hall in Philadelphia before heading to Green Bay. "Harry Truman had that sign on the desk and it said, 'The buck stops here.' The buck doesn't stop at the Pentagon. And in this case it doesn't just stop with any military personnel."