Analysis: A split in the military

Donald Rumsfeld with General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. In an October press conference, Pace said of the then Secretary of Defense, "He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country."

A high-ranking, active-duty US Army officer has published a blistering attack on American generals, saying they have botched the war in Iraq and misled Congress on the situation there.

"America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq," charges Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling, an Iraq veteran who is deputy commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "The intellectual and moral failures ... constitute a crisis in American generals."

Yingling's comments are especially striking because his unit's performance in securing the northwestern Iraqi city of Tal Afar was cited by President George W Bush in a 2006 speech and provided the model for the new security plan under way in Baghdad.

He also holds a high profile for a lieutenant colonel, having attended the army's elite School for Advanced Military Studies and written for one of its top journals, Military Review.

The article "General Failure" appears in Armed Forces Journal. Its appearance signals the public emergence of a split in the military between younger, mid-career officers and the top brass.

Read the rest at the Standard