Atrocities and "policy guidance"

I was struck in reading today's post from WallDon, "Soldiers charged with murder", that, once again, no commissioned officers were held to have been involved at all, not even a sacrificial Lt. Calley. Perhaps they weren't in this case. . . .

And then, in catching up on a few days' missed reading in Scatablog, I saw Saturday's "Pentagon Speak", in which the indefatigable WallDon cited a NY Times article about a report from one General Formica (Is that his real name?) about other Iraq atrocities by US Special Forces. The good general

recommended that none of the service members be disciplined, saying what they did was wrong but not deliberate abuse. He faulted "inadequate policy guidance" rather than "personal failure" for the mistreatment, and cited the dangerous environment in which Special Operations forces carried out their missions.

Doesn't "inadequate policy guidance" mean that somebody higher up the military chain of command was in fact responsible? Formica is scratch resistant: do all officers (and Defense Dept./Pentagon officials) get the same coating? Sure looks like it.