As I understand it the reason for William Douglas-Home's court martial and imprisonment was because he refused to carry out orders which woudl,mhave mean the needless death of civilians.

No I'm not splitting hairs - the point is that the safety of his own men is not the primary consideration for a commanding officer, it is always seen as subordinate to trying to achieve the miltary objective. In this case the military objective should have been to capture Saddam's sons alive if at all possible.