Fast was the most senior military intelligence officer serving in Iraq during the period of time when the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse occurred. Critics believed she should have been held partly accountable for the abuses committed at Abu Ghraib by military intelligence personnel, but she was exonerated by the military. In the Fay Report, Fast received praise for improving intelligence collection efforts when the Iraqi insurgency was growing in the summer of 2003. Changes she put in place "improved the intelligence process and saved the lives of coalition forces and Iraqi civilians," according to Army Major General George Fay.