Predictably the White House has led the Rumsfeld defence. It has dismissed the Generals' criticism arguing that the army must function under civilian control. That the Generals' discontent is unjustified and also unconstitutional. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon, "People can question my judgment or his judgment, but they should never question the dedication, the patriotism and the work ethic of Secretary Rumsfeld." This defence is not surprising. Rumsfeld is the chairman's boss. He is also Bush's pointman on US war on Iraq and by extension the war on the Iraqi people. 

This military criticism is significant for two reasons. One for what it raises both within the realm of civil-military relations. Two for what it establishes as a role of US military in botched up US military operations. Obviously there are legal frameworks that firmly uphold civilian supremacy over the military, as does Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Under this article any US military officer who "uses contemptuous words against the president, the vice president, Congress, the secretary of defence" or other officials is to be court-martialed. 

The popular US General MacArthur did cross the line set by article 88 during the Korean war. His repeated criticism of President Harry Truman's handling of the way cost him his command. Truman's ratings fell to the 20s and there was talk of Truman's impeachment. The MacArthur-Truman affair however was an aberration, not the rule. The army's complete subservience to its civilian leadership during the Vietnam war was the rule. 

Yet subsequently there was disquiet about the quiet of the US army in US's controversial and lost war in Vietnam. Some US military historians argue that the army's failure to challenge Lyndon Johnson, Defence Secretary Robert McNamara and other civilians over the handling of the Vietnam war has "haunted some of the generals." According to Professor Dennis Showalter of Colorado College "If the military is always fighting the last war, well, in the last big war, in Vietnam, the Generals stayed quiet and that's now seen as a mistake." 

It is more than just criticism from retired generals. Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, a retired Marine maintained in his Time magazine essay that he was writing "with the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership." Another historian Richard H. Kohn, at the University of North Carolina reads into the Generals' criticism "a dam of anger and frustration bursting on the part of these senior retired people." 

Some critics of the army's criticism view it as the army trying to undermine civilian leadership. They argue that this criticism is undermining the army's reputation of being nonpartisan and of being 'above the fray.' This unprecedented criticism from the army reflects the restiveness within the ranks about a botched up war. Some view this as the first signs of even retired army generals deviating from the norm of 'no comments' on the conduct of war. Yet this expectation of no comments from increasingly complex and challenging war zones is unrealistic. If the ground situation continues to throw up sustained losses the men on the frontlines supported by many critics at home will speak up. More than 2220 US soldiers have died in Iraq. And over 30,000 Iraqis. 

Added to the losses, is the fear and hate-loaded battle ethos that has been promoted by Washington's war leaders. It is an ethos that dehumanises the adversary promoting almost a brutal means to battle. It therefore leaves a trail of inhuman practices and approaches used in the war. Abu Ghraib abuses, friendly fires leaving innocent dead and the US troops targeting innocents including a newborn baby girl, her mother and four other civilians. 

Two separate incidents happened on April 17 in troubled eastern Afghanistan. Similarly another mother, who was returning home from a clinic where the woman had just given birth, the baby and two other women were hurt late Monday when the US soldiers fired at their car after the driver ignored orders to stop in Khost province. The mother was hit in the chest while the other women also suffered bullet wounds. There are no details of the baby's injury. A day earlier in Khost US soldiers fired at a lorry which failed to slow down at a checkpoint and injured the driver and a six-year-old boy. 

Three days earlier coalition forces killed seven civilians during a gun-battle with suspected Taleban militants in the eastern province of Kunar. Such war excesses in Iraq must take place on a much larger scale.

There is enough out there to outrage sensitive soldiers and make them question the logic of the war. But they seldom come out openly to oppose the war. Yet high profile former military men are joining the criticism chorus of the Congress, media and of organised groups. This will make the war in Iraq more unpopular, Bush more unpopular and force an earlier draw-down of US troops from Iraq.

Nasim Zehra is a fellow of Harvard University Asia Center, Cambridge, Mass. and Adjunct professor at SAIS Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC.