-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- She said she was a scapegoat . She said she was just following orders . She said she was demoted unfairly . Retired Army Col. Janis Karpinski was one of two officers punished over Abu Ghraib . Now , retired Army Col. Janis Karpinski can say : I told you so . Karpinski was one of two officers punished over the aggressive interrogations at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq . Pictures of detainees caused outrage around the world when they were leaked to the news media in May 2004 . The photos showed naked prisoners stacked on top of each other or being threatened by dogs or hooded and wired up as if for electrocution . Throughout the ordeal , Karpinski maintained that she and her troops were following interrogation guidelines approved by top brass . Today , Karpinski has found validation in a few Bush-era memos released last week by the Obama administration . `` The outrage was over the photographs , because the photographs were living color of what those top-secret memorandums authorized , '' Karpinski said in an interview Wednesday . `` So , it is unfair ... the soldiers may have moved through -LSB- the military justice -RSB- system , but they never had a fair court-martial . Not any one of them , because they were condemned as one of the ` bad apples . ' '' Karpinski , then a brigadier general and commander of Abu Ghraib , was demoted to colonel because of the scandal . A second officer , Col. Thomas Pappas , the commander of the military intelligence unit assigned to Abu Ghraib when the offenses occurred , was relieved of duty and fined in May 2005 . Seven low-ranking guards and two military intelligence soldiers -- described by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz as `` bad apples '' -- were disciplined . The memo , by then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee and then-Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven G. Bradbury , allowed the use of such tactics as keeping a detainee naked and in some cases in a diaper , and putting detainees on a liquid diet . One memo said aggressive techniques such as waterboarding , sleep deprivation and slapping did not violate laws against torture absent the intent to cause severe pain . `` I will tell you that when I read those memorandums , when they were first released a few days ago , I did -- I did feel this sense of being able to exhale after five years , '' Karpinski said . `` That is what we have been saying from the very beginning , that , wait a minute , why are you inside pointing the finger at me , why are you pointing the fingers at the soldiers here ? There 's a bigger story here . '' The Senate Armed Forces Committee released a report Tuesday , five days after the memos were released , stating that senior Bush administration officials authorized aggressive interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists , despite concerns from military psychologists and attorneys . The report points to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld 's approval of such techniques -- including stress positions , removal of clothing , use of phobias -LRB- such as fear of dogs -RRB- , and deprivation of light and auditory stimuli -- in December 2002 for detainees at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay , Cuba . His OK prompted interrogators in Afghanistan and Iraq to adopt the aggressive techniques . The guidance was delivered to Abu Ghraib by then-Maj . Gen. Geoffrey Miller , who was summoned to Baghdad from Guantanamo to evaluate the prison system . `` We had a myriad of problems in our -- in the prison system , not with detainees who were undergoing interrogations , but with Iraqi criminal prisoners , '' Karpinski said . `` And instead of coming to give us support , he was sent specifically to work with the military intelligence interrogators to teach them the harsher techniques that were being used down in Guantanamo . '' Shortly before he left office in late 2006 , Rumsfeld said the day the Abu Ghraib scandal broke was the worst in his tenure as defense secretary . `` Clearly the worst day was Abu Ghraib , and seeing what went on there and feeling so deeply sorry that that happened , '' he said at the time . `` I remember being stunned by the news of the abuse . '' But Karpinski said the condition of detainees at the prison should have come as no surprise for the Bush administration . `` I think it was torture , absolutely . You know , I was never inside an interrogation room where they were conducting interrogations , but I read the memorandums many times over , '' she said . `` Waterboarding is torture . '' Karpinski said that while she was the commander of Abu Ghraib , she did n't personally witness any of the interrogation techniques . `` The first time I saw the photographs was at the end of January -LSB- 2004 -RSB- , '' she said . Karpinski said she was ordered by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez , the U.S. commander of operations in Iraq at the time , not to discuss the photographs or the investigation with anybody . Now , despite any relief felt by the release of the memos and the Senate report , Karpinski said she will have a hard time shaking off the humiliation and disgrace brought on by the Abu Ghraib scandal . `` I think that , you know , you can not dismiss five years of having to live under these accusations , '' she said , `` and people associating my name and these soldiers ' names with what they were so unfairly accused of . '' CNN 's Rick Sanchez contributed to this report .