I don't know of she was taking anything under the table. It sounds like a simple...yet snoballing case of CYA on her part.
Worried more about her next OER she chose to obfusciate and allow incompetence and mismanagement by people below her to spread into the crap we see on TV about Abu Ghraib every minute.
Soldiers, while for the most part disciplined in their actions are human. If the bad apples that caused Abu Ghraib...saw that the brass were looking the other way...that was interpreted as a green light to continue their treatment of the prisoners.
The press beats on serious soldiers, such as Sanchez, and gives a pass to Karpinski. I do not think that the Eastern press has any idea about what the UCMJ is all about.