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.