Fort Meade, Md. ? The buck stops with Lt. Col. Steven Lee Jordan.

Eleven U.S. soldiers – all of them from the enlisted ranks – have been convicted in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, with the harshest sentence a 10-year prison term handed out to a corporal. A general and other officers have received reprimands or demotions that ended or blighted their careers.

But only one officer – Jordan, a 50-year-old Army reservist who ran the interrogation center at the Iraqi prison – faces criminal charges. And unless some startling new information comes to light, it appears that this is as high up the chain of command as criminal charges will go.

Military prosecutors have put Jordan in this solitary position for one reason: They believe he is the man who allowed Abu Ghraib to happen.

Jordan has not been accused of personally torturing or humiliating prisoners. Nor is he seen in any of the photos that stunned Americans, embittered the country’s foes, infuriated the Mideast and compromised the U.S. campaign for democracy in Iraq.

But Jordan is accused of failing utterly to exert his authority as the place fell into chaos.

Jordan is charged with 12 counts, including dereliction of duty and cruelty and maltreatment, that carry a combined sentence of 42 years. He is awaiting a decision on whether he will be court-martialed.

His defense, revealed at a preliminary hearing in October, is that Jordan had no operational control over interrogations and spent much of his time trying to improve living conditions for soldiers.

But Maj. Gen. George R. Fay and Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones, who investigated the scandal, concluded that Jordan’s “tacit approval” of violence by military police during an episode in November 2003 “can be pointed to as the causative factor that set the stage for the abuses that followed for days afterward” – namely, the ugly photos.

On Nov. 24, 2003, a detainee shot at an MP with a pistol smuggled into the prison by an Iraqi police officer. In reaction, the MPs rounded up 11 Iraqi police officers, and Jordan, the senior officer present, ordered interrogators to screen them.

The Iraqis were strip-searched with female soldiers present. Some were kept naked during interrogations, according to the investigators’ report; no one appeared to be in charge, and there was a widely held but mistaken impression that the rules prohibiting such treatment had been suspended. According to the investigators, Jordan should have known better and restored order.

“Lt. Col. Jordan is responsible for allowing the chaotic situation, the unauthorized nakedness and resultant humiliation, and the military working dog abuses that occurred that night,” the report said.