The New York Times says the father of Ivan Frederick, of one of the prison guards being investigated for abuse, fearful his son would be a scapegoat, contacted his brother-in law-, William Lawson, who contacted "retired Colonel and muckraker David Hackworth," who put the father in touch with the '60 Minutes II' producers.

Rumsfeld to Congress yesterday: "I wish I had been able to convey to them the gravity of this before we saw it in the media,"

The irony, Mr. Lawson said, is that the public spectacle might have been avoided if the military and the federal government had been responsive to his claims that his nephew was simply following orders. Mr. Lawson said he sent letters to 17 members of Congress about the case earlier this year, with virtually no response, and that he ultimately contacted Mr. Hackworth's Web site out of frustration, leading him to cooperate with a consultant for "60 Minutes II."

....He shared his frustration in his March 23 e-mail message to Mr. Hackworth's Web site, writing: "We have contacted the Red Cross, Congress both parties, Bill O'Reilly and many others. Nobody wants to touch this."

"The Army had the opportunity for this not to come out, not to be on 60 Minutes," he said. "But the Army decided to prosecute those six G.I.'s because they thought me and my family were a bunch of poor, dirt people who could not do anything about it. But unfortunately, that was not the case."

How did the photos get to Ivan Frederick's father?