The Revolt of the Generals

By MICHAEL DUFFY

Army Major General John Batiste sounded like a big fan of Donald Rumsfeld's when the Pentagon chief dropped by the 1st Infantry Division in Tikrit on Christmas Eve 2004. "This is a man with the courage and the conviction to win the war on terrorism," Batiste told a gathering of 250 G.I.s.

But Batiste's true feelings were a little more complex than he was letting on. After joining a growing chorus of retired generals last week calling on Rumsfeld to resign, Batiste told TIME that he was actually seething as the Defense chief came to call. "When I introduce the Secretary of Defense to my troops, I'm going to be a loyal subordinate," he said. "But it was boiling inside me. Every time I looked at him, I was thinking about ... that s_____ war plan, I was thinking about Abu Ghraib, and I was thinking about the challenges I had every day trying to rebuild the Iraqi military that he disbanded."

Batiste, it turns out, wasn't the only one holding his fire. Over the past several weeks, the extent of the military's unhappiness with Rumsfeld has exploded into what is already being called the Revolt of the Generals. Half a dozen retired generals have used newspaper opinion pages--and in the case of Lieut. General Greg Newbold, TIME magazine (see TIME.com)--to break months of silence and call for Rumsfeld's head. That in turn has rekindled the debate about whether the Iraqi invasion was ill-conceived in the first place, and, if so, who is to blame. President George W. Bush issued a defiant defense of his Pentagon boss--if not the larger enterprise itself--from Camp David, where he went to spend Easter: "Secretary Rumsfeld's energetic and steady leadership is exactly what is needed at this critical period. He has my full support and deepest appreciation." General Richard Myers, the recently retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and retired General Tommy Franks, the main architect of the Afghanistan and Iraq interventions, also quickly leaped to Rumsfeld's defense.

In Washington such high praise from the President is sometimes the prelude to an execution. And behind the scenes, there are indications that the moment for a shuffle could be approaching, says a former White House official who has worked with Rumsfeld. "There are people in the building who would like to see 'peace with honor,'" the official told TIME, dusting off a reference to the 1968 campaign theme that helped elect Richard Nixon. But a senior White House official insisted that Bush would not be pushed into removing the Pentagon boss. "No one has ever mentioned a timeline for his tenure," he said.

Open revolts by the top military brass against their civilian minders are rare but not unprecedented. General MacArthur objected to Harry Truman's handling of the Korean War and was fired in 1951. The Air Force didn't like the way Lyndon Johnson handpicked bombing targets during the Vietnam War. And Bill Clinton had to back down after he ordered the Pentagon to openly admit homosexuals in 1993 by settling on the narrower "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.

But what distinguishes the latest rebellion is that the retired generals are taking on their old boss not over policy or budgets but the operation of an ongoing war. And it is a message that will probably be heard more deeply by voters than the usual criticism from Capitol Hill or editorial boards, particularly because the generals are making essentially the same argument: Rumsfeld was wrong to disband the Iraqi military, has ignored the advice of people with far more battlefield experience and has shown too little concern about the abuses of Iraqi prisoners. The generals also argue that Rumsfeld insisted on too small a force for the invasion, abandoning the doctrine championed by former Secretary of State and four-star general Colin Powell in 1991 after the Gulf War to attack rarely and then only with overwhelming force. Rumsfeld wanted to prove the Powell Doctrine obsolete. Instead, he has probably guaranteed that it will be followed for years.

There is some evidence that the retirees are speaking for other generals still on active duty. "I think," said former U.S. Central Command boss Anthony C. Zinni, a retired Marine four star, "a lot of people are biting their tongues." But not everyone: some still in uniform have criticized the retirees for speaking up now instead of before the war, when the brass accepted Rumsfeld's demands for a smaller, lighter force. But one consistent part of the indictment is that Rumsfeld made clear he wouldn't listen to views that didn't match his own anyway. Lieut. General Newbold made that point in his essay in TIME last week, when he wrote that Rumsfeld marginalized former Army General Eric Shinseki after the Chief of Staff suggested in a hearing before Congress that much larger forces would be needed following the invasion. "They only need the military advice when it satisfies their agenda," said Major General John Riggs, who spoke out on National Public Radio last Thursday.

While the military's reproach is the most remarkable, it follows some public criticism of Rumsfeld from the civilian side of the Administration that seems to signal he is no longer feared. Last month, Condoleezza Rice acknowledged "tactical errors, thousands of them" in the conduct of the war. That remark, which Rice later characterized as a figure of speech, led Rumsfeld to respond, "I don't know what she was talking about, to be perfectly honest." And though he bears some responsibility for overstating the case for war before the invasion, Powell took aim at his old rival Rumsfeld too, saying last week, "We made some serious mistakes in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad. We didn't have enough troops on the ground. We didn't impose our will. And as a result, an insurgency got started, and ... it got out of control."

Retired Marine Zinni has said the best outcome would be for Rumsfeld to resign rather than force Bush to fire him. But several well-placed Republicans say that Rumsfeld's fate may be as much in the hands of the Vice President as in the President's. Although Rumsfeld is more responsible than any other man for the rise of Dick Cheney during the 1970s, their roles have since reversed, and now the protege is protecting the mentor. Between the two of them, Cheney and Rumsfeld have run the Pentagon for almost 12 of the last 32 years. It's the federal agency each knows best, and neither man has any patience for insubordination from men and women in uniform. Cheney began his four-year stint as Defense Secretary in 1989 by publicly scolding Air Force General Larry Welch, who lobbied for missile programs without Cheney's O.K. Not long after, Cheney fired Welch's successor for making unauthorized statements to reporters before the first Gulf War in 1990. "The possibility of Rumsfeld leaving has definitely crossed the President's mind," the former White House official told TIME last week. "The key to it is the relationship with Cheney, and I don't know where that is right now."

But there is also the question of Rumsfeld's ability to function along the Pentagon's polished corridors. A veteran of the highest level E-Ring meetings predicted that Rumsfeld will wonder whether he is hearing what the uniformed officers are really thinking. A natural instinct in that situation, he added, would be to invite fewer military officers to high-level meetings--thus potentially adding to the distance between the uniforms and the civilians.

A friend who recently spent the weekend with Rumsfeld and his wife predicted Rumsfeld would stay for the duration: "They will have to pry him from his stand-up desk with a crowbar." In Cairo last week, Rumsfeld tried to take it all in stride. "If every time two or three people disagreed, we changed the Secretary of Defense of the United States, it would be like a merry-go-round." But Rumsfeld may again be underestimating the strength of an insurgency--this one in his own backyard. Other retired officers are expected to make their views known soon. Which means this Revolt of the Generals has yet to run its course.

With reporting by Mike Allen, Perry Bacon Jr., Matthew Cooper, SALLY B. DONNELLY, Mark Thompson/Washington