One of the most admirable qualities of the USA and its tremendous military force is that there is not a trace of doubt that the US military is under firm democratic control. The army acts because it is asked to act by elected officials. There simply is no history to back any suspicion that it should be any other way. This is an essential difference between America and any other major aggresive military power the world has known in the last couple of decades.
On the other hand this indicates quite clearly to me that is Ricardo Sanchez approved the use of turture at Abu Ghraib, as reported by The Washington Post, he was told to do so by somebody even higher up in the Bush administration even if there is no paper trail (yet).