The General in charge of Abu Ghraib, who was never punished and was in fact fêtêd for promotion looks like he's gonna be a good soldier to the end and take one in the face for the 1600 Crew. LTG Ricardo Sanchez looks like he's going to retire as a three-star, instead of stirring up the Abu Ghraib pot in this election year.

The Army career of Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the American commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, is coming to an end.

General Sanchez has told senior Army officials that he plans to retire, probably this summer, rather than face a bruising Senate confirmation fight over any new assignment, said two senior officials who were granted anonymity because General Sanchez has not made his decision public.
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But the legacy of Abu Ghraib and its photographs of prisoner mistreatment that prompted worldwide outrage dogged General Sanchez and ensured that any promotion would ignite a political storm on Capitol Hill over holding senior military officers and top Pentagon officials accountable for the misconduct.

"It's a question of simply not being able to get by Senate confirmation," said one Army general, adding that Pentagon officials feared that nominating General Sanchez for a new job would "stir up too much political bad news in an election year."

Sanchez does have an interesting and compelling story, like Colin Powell before him, he's a guy who's a testament to the color-blindness of the military (as well as being an accomplished politician in his own right to get to the three-star rank).

The general's life story reads like a pitch-perfect script for an Army recruiter. As a 6-year-old, he worked as a dry cleaner's delivery boy to supplement the welfare payment that supported his Mexican-American family in Rio Grande City, Tex., a few miles from the border that his paternal grandfather first crossed in the early 1900's. He was the first in his family to graduate from high school.