Lt. Col. Steven Jordan was cleared on Thursday of all charges following the 2004 scandal, when photos of abused inmates in Iraqi Abu Ghraib prison were made public. The court martial had previously convicted Jordan of disobeying an order, as he was not authorized to discuss the abuses in jail, giving him a criminal reprimand. But Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe of the Military District of Washington decided Jordan should not be charged with any criminal offense.

Joana P. Hawkins, a spokeswoman for the army, said in a statement: “In light of the nature of the offense that Jordan had been found guilty of committing and the substantial evidence in mitigation at trial and in post-trial matters submitted by defense counsel, Rowe determined that an administrative reprimand was a fair and appropriate disposition of the matter.”

In 2004, photos of prisoners being abused in the Iraqi prison of Abu Ghraib were published across the world. They featured naked prisoners, who were being sexually humiliated by American soldiers. Jordan was the head of the interrogation center when the scandal broke out. The photos ignited harsh critics from human rights organizations all over the world, which threw the army into a cone of shadow.

During the investigation, Jordan faced multiple years in prison for several offenses, but he denied the allegations, saying that he did not take part in the abuse, and that the military was just trying to blame this whole story on him. If that is true, it can only mean one thing: if Jordan had no authority, as he claims, to have given such orders, than his superior officers did. Some army heads should probably fall, but the investigation will probably go no further than it already did, despite the human rights advocates who ask for measures to be taken.