Officers exonerated in Abu Ghraib abuses

WASHINGTON - Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, faulted by some for leadership failures in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, has been cleared by the Army of all allegations of wrongdoing and will not be punished, officials said.

Three officers who were among Sanchez's top deputies during the period of the prisoner abuse in the fall of 2003 also have been cleared. An Army Reserve one-star general has been reprimanded, and the outcome of seven other senior Army officer cases could not be learned Friday.

Sanchez, who became the senior U.S. commander in Iraq in June 2003, two months after the fall of Baghdad, has not been accused of criminal violations. It is unclear, however, whether the controversy surrounding his role in Iraq will stand in the way of his earning a fourth star. He is nearing the end of his tenure as commander of the Army's 5th Corps, based in Germany.

After assessing the allegations against Sanchez and taking sworn statements from 37 people, the Army's inspector general, Lt. Gen. Stanley E. Green, concluded that the allegations were unsubstantiated, according to officials familiar with the details of Green's probe.

Green reached the same conclusion in the cases of two generals and a colonel who worked on Sanchez's staff.

The officials who disclosed the findings spoke only on condition of anonymity because the results on Sanchez and 11 other officers who were the subject of Green's scrutiny have not yet been publicly released and Congress has not been fully briefed.

The question of accountability among senior Army and Defense Department officials who were in positions of responsibility on Iraq detention and interrogation policy has been hotly debated in Congress. Some Democrats accuse the Pentagon of foisting all the blame onto low-ranking soldiers.

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Another shibboleth of the Loony Left dies with a wimper. It now appears that not only were the Abu Ghraib abuses not condoned by higher-ups in the Pentagon, but that the blame may indeed lie with those who actually committed them.

Special thanks goes out to the NY Times for keeping the issue alive and providing their buddies at Al Jazeera with gasoline to toss on the anti-American fires.