WASHINGTON, 24 April 2005 — Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, faulted by some for leadership failures in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, has been cleared by the US 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 US 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.
In a statement issued Friday that did not mention Sanchez or other specific cases, Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that as soon as all Pentagon assessments of accountability are complete he will hold a committee hearing “to examine the adequacy of those reviews” and to hear senior civilian and military officials address the issue.
Warner, R-Va., said he strongly agrees with one investigation report that concluded last year that commanders should be held accountable for their action or inaction and that military as well as civilian leaders in the Pentagon “share this burden of responsibility.”
Asked about public expectations of punishment for senior officers associated with Abu Ghraib, the army’s chief public affairs officer, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, said the army went to great lengths to make its investigations thorough and fair.
In addition to clearing Sanchez, the army inspector general has determined that there should be no punishment given to Sanchez’s former top deputy, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski; to Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, who was Sanchez’s intelligence chief in Baghdad; or to Col. Mark Warren, Sanchez’s top legal adviser at the time.
In an interview Friday, three senior defense officials associated with the Green investigations cited mitigating circumstances in the Sanchez case, including the fact that his organization in Iraq, known as Combined Joint Task Force 7, initially was short of the senior officers it required.
