FORT HOOD, Texas — The photos were some of the most gruesome images to come out of the Abu Ghraib scandal: Pfc. Lynndie England was seen grinning, giving a thumbs-up, pointing at a naked prisoner's genitals as a cigarette dangled from her lips.

Yesterday, a soft-spoken England, 22, was in a military courtroom pleading guilty to mistreating inmates at the prison, the smile and cigarette replaced by pursed lips, the boisterous pointing replaced by arms held close to her side.

Offering the most ordinary explanation for a scandal that ignited international outrage last April, England said she posed in some of the widely circulated photographs showing humiliating abuses of Iraqi detainees to placate her then-boyfriend and others from her Maryland-based unit.

"I had a choice, but I chose to do what my friends wanted me to," the Army reservist from West Virginia told the judge glumly as she pleaded guilty to mistreating detainees at the Baghdad prison. "They were being very persistent and bugging me, and I was like, 'OK, whatever.' "

She entered guilty pleas to two counts of conspiracy to maltreat prisoners, four counts of maltreating prisoners and one count of committing an indecent act. Prosecutors agreed to drop another count of committing an indecent act and one count of dereliction of duty.

England, who gave birth to a son in October, faces a maximum sentence of 11 years in military prison. But she is expected to serve considerably less time than that under the undisclosed terms of her plea deal with prosecutors.

A jury composed of Army officers and enlisted soldiers will be seated this morning to recommend a sentence for England as part of a penalty hearing expected to last several days. Under military law, she would receive the lesser punishment between what the jury recommends and what prosecutors have offered. If she had been convicted as charged, she could have gotten 16 ½ years behind bars.

The emergence of the Abu Ghraib photographs spawned nearly a dozen Defense Department and military inquiries into detainee abuse and focused an international spotlight on U.S. detention operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

While government officials initially tried to minimize the Abu Ghraib abuses as being at the hands of a few bad apples in the Army Reserve, the larger investigations revealed widespread abuses involving questionable and harsh interrogation tactics.

England's defense team has been arguing for nearly a year that her case was part of a bigger picture, initially trying to get top U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to testify at her court-martial about the nation's policies for handling and interrogating detainees. They said England was simply doing as she was told and as a low-ranking soldier, she wasn't in a position to question her orders.

In the end, England negotiated a plea. But those careful arrangements almost went awry yesterday when a skeptical Army judge raised questions about her admission of guilt. In military law, a judge cannot accept a defendant's guilty plea without assurance that the plea is true.

England told the judge, Col. James Pohl, that she was sent to Iraq as a records clerk with the 372nd Military Police Company, based in Cumberland, Md., and had no training as a prison guard when the Army assigned her to work at Baghdad's toughest prison. When Pohl asked England why she posed for a photograph holding a leash that was attached to a prisoner, England responded that she had been told to do so by then-Sgt. Charles Graner Jr., who was trained as a prison guard and was her boyfriend at the time.

"Did you question this procedure?" the judge asked.

"I assumed it was OK," England replied, "because he was an MP [military-police soldier], he had the corrections-officer background. He was older than me."

Pohl appeared troubled by her answer, noting that she had to have knowledge her actions were wrong to be legally culpable.

At this, lawyers on both sides requested an hour's recess. When they returned, England had changed her tone and her explanation, saying she knew at the time that use of the leash "was not only morally wrong but legally wrong."

England went on to say she had deliberately done wrong in posing for other pictures, including one that showed seven naked prisoners forced to form a human pyramid. "I knew it was wrong," she said. "Who would morally do something like that in a U.S. prison?"

England told the judge that Graner, the reputed ringleader of the abusers and the man said to be the father of England's infant son, put the leash around the prisoner's neck to take him from one cell to another. When the prisoner resisted, she told the judge, Graner said to her: "Hold this, I'm going to take a picture."

Graner was convicted in January on a range of abuse charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Last month, he married former Spc. Megan Ambuhl, an Abu Ghraib defendant who was discharged from the Army without serving prison time. Graner had another man stand in for him in the marriage-by-proxy April 12 near Fort Hood.

England's lawyer Rick Hernandez said last week that the defense will present evidence during the sentencing that England has severe learning disabilities and mental problems.

Graner is expected to testify for the defense during England's sentencing.

England, from Fort Ashby, W.Va., is one of seven members of the 372nd Military Police Company charged with humiliating and assaulting prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Four other members of the 372nd and two low-level military-intelligence officers have entered guilty pleas, with sentences ranging from no time to 8 ½ years. The only soldier to stand trial so far is Graner. Spc. Sabrina Harman, a former Abu Ghraib guard, is scheduled to go to trial at Fort Hood, Texas, next week.

Material from The Associated Press, The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun is included in this report.