They weren't there, but should have known, will be charged???
It's the nature of command. The commander has a duty to make every reasonable effort to determine what's going on in his command.
That was what really pissed me off about Abu Ghraib; the general kept whining that she had no idea what was going on inside her own friggin' prison! It's called "management by walking around." It's called "get off your fat a$$, get out of your office, get down to where your troops are supposedly doing their jobs, and find out what's going on."
One of the first warning signs of a unit going to hell is when the senior leadership is closeted away in their offices--the troops start thinking that their leaders don't care, and pretty soon the troops don't care, and then they start doing things they're not supposed to be doing.
When I was in the Army, my first sergeant was almost never in his office unless the CO was holding him there at gunpoint to get some paperwork done. Otherwise, he was out there, talking to soldiers about what they were doing, correcting or commending them as appropriate, giving a good example of leadership to junior NCOs, and showing us that he cared very much about what went on with HIS soldiers, in HIS company, and in HIS Army. And the same with the company commander, the platoon leaders, and the platoon sergeants. The company CO once said that he didn't want to see a platoon leader sitting down during working hours unless they were eating or excreting--he wanted them moving around and through their platoons.
If stuff like this is what's happening--if the leadership isn't keeping track of what's going on--we have a huge problem, and it goes WAY beyond any allegations of "war crimes" or anything else. It will destroy our military if it goes on unchecked.
Commanders are responsible for everything that does or does not happen.
Apparently,they(Senior Officers)are meant to be CLAIRVOYANT?