By Thomas Ricks in Washington
ANOTHER retired commander of US troops in Iraq has called for the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, to step down.
Major-General John Batiste, who led the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004-05, has joined several former commanders in harshly criticising Mr Rumsfeld's authoritarian style for making the military's job more difficult.
He said it was time for a fresh start at the top of the Pentagon.
"We need leadership up there that respects the military as they expect the military to respect them. And that leadership needs to understand teamwork."
General Batiste noted that many of his peers felt the same. "It speaks volumes that guys like me are speaking out from retirement about the leadership climate in the Department of Defence," he said in a CNN interview.
His comments resonate especially with the army, where it is widely known that he was offered a promotion to lieutenant-general to return to Iraq as the No. 2 officer there but declined because he no longer wished to serve under Mr Rumsfeld.
General Batiste said he believed the Administration's handling of the Iraq war had violated fundamental military principles, such as unity of command and effort.
In an essay in Time this week, a retired marines lieutenant-general, Gregory Newbold, proposed "replacing Rumsfeld and many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach". General Newbold held the key post of director of operations on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2000 to 2002.
Last month, another retired major-general who served in Iraq, Paul Eaton, in an opinion piece for The New York Times, wrote that Mr Rumsfeld was "incompetent - strategically, operationally and tactically".
■ The Bush Administration has denounced a report in The Washington Post that questioned the handling of postwar intelligence about alleged Iraqi bioweapons laboratories. A White House spokesman acknowledged on Wednesday that President George Bush's assertions about the suspected labs were in error but said this was a result of flawed intelligence work rather than an attempt to mislead.
The Washington Post