The Hindu Business Line : Should generals speak out?

Commentators have described what has happened in the US this month as a virtual revolt, though confined to a few retired Generals. Unless put down firmly, they fear that it might become a contagion and spread to serving officers and spell the erosion of the civilian control of the Defence forces.

If it had happened in Pakistan under a civilian-led democratic dispensation, it would have ominously signalled an imminent military takeover. Had it happened in a banana republic under a military dictator, it would have been followed by the critics being stood against a wall and shot. In the UK and India it is unthinkable. But it happens in the US and everybody goes about his business after a bemused and quizzical glance sideways at where the noises are coming from.

Pungent epithets

All of a sudden, one after another, in quick succession, seven Generals of the US, who had held top positions in the Armed Forces and the Marines, came out in the early part of this month hurling pungent epithets at the US Secretary of Defence, Mr Donald H. Rumsfeld. Just listen to a few of the choice phrases used by them:

"We need leadership up there (at the Defence Department) that respects the military as they expect the military to respect them. And that leadership needs to understand teamwork" (Gen John Batiste, Commander of an Infantry Division in Iraq, who refused promotion so as to avoid serving under Mr Rumsfeld).

"... (Rumsfeld is) "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically. (He) must step down." (Gen Paul Eaton, in an article in The New York Times).

"The problem is that we've wasted three years in Iraq... I absolutely think Rumsfeld should resign." (Marine Gen Anthony Zinni, former chief of the US Central Command, which oversees Iraq and the rest of West Asia).

"... Everyone pretty much thinks Rumsfeld and the bunch around him should be cleared out... (Rumsfeld and his advisers) have made fools of themselves, and totally underestimated what would be needed for a sustained conflict." (Gen John Riggs).

"A lot of them are hugely frustrated... (Rumsfeld gave the impression that) military advice was neither required nor desired (in the planning for the Iraq war)." (Gen Wallace Gregson, former Commander of the Marine forces in the Pacific Theatre).

"This too will pass"

Apart from what the Generals have been saying and writing openly, there has also been a rash of unattributed but unrefuted stories of Mr Rumsfeld having been the instigator of many of the shocking abuses of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

Only one General — Peter Pace — the present chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has publicly defended Mr Rumsfeld, by calling all the accusations "flat wrong" and asserting that no officers were muzzled during the planning of the invasion of Iraq. "We had then and have now every opportunity to speak our minds, and if we do not, shame on us."

Even fellow Americans, accustomed to living in an open society that treasures free speech and fosters dissent, find all the vitriolic emanations from the military brass a bit much, although Mr Rumsfeld himself has taken all this sportingly. He has comforted himself with parallels from history, saying that "this too will pass."

No doubt, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was often double-crossed by some of his Generals; however, by handling them tactfully, he got the best out of them. President Harry Truman had to sack the legendary General Douglas MacArthur when the latter became uppity and for several months had to bear the torment of the most vituperative attacks on him by the General himself and the US Congress.

There are, of course, any number of instances of constant bickering among Generals themselves during the Second World War — Generals Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander in charge of the invasion of Europe, George S. Patton and Bernard Montgomery were at loggerheads over both strategy and tactics, complaining against each other to their political bosses. Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was forced into suicide because his loyalty to Hitler came under suspicion.

Whatever that be, commentators have described what has happened in the US this month as a virtual revolt, though confined to a few retired Generals. They have expressed the fear that unless put down firmly, it might become a contagion and spread to serving officers and spell the erosion of the civilian control of the Defence forces, inhibiting the civilian superiors from overruling senior Generals and making them obey even the justifiable directions of political leadership in the nation's best interests.

The US President, Mr George W. Bush, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, has since declared that he, "as the decider, has decided" that Mr Rumsfeld has been doing a whale of a job and must and will stay as his Secretary of Defence.

It is most unlikely that the matter will end there. The very fact of the eruption of an apparently synchronised chorus of virulent personal criticism may mean that the Generals, taking advantage of their retired status, are speaking out on behalf of their serving colleagues as well. In any case, this evidence of low morale and high resentment built around the personality of Mr Rumsfeld can only mean that tension in the Pentagon had been on the boil for quite some time and has crossed the stage of kissing and making up.

The US President cannot afford to have on such an important job as the Secretary of Defence someone who has become so controversial, especially at a time when his own rating has plunged to its lowest depth ever. All chances are that Mr Rumsfeld would be allowed to quit in an outwardly honourable manner after a decent interval of a couple of months or less.

Great finesse

The UK, and following its model, India, show great finesse in managing things without creating the kind of ruckus that occurs in the US. In both countries, Generals and the civilian authorities sort out their differences within the four walls of their offices. Winston Churchill stripped Generals Wavell and Alexander of their commands during the Second World War for not measuring up, and they accepted their marching orders quietly as disciplined soldiers. However, recently one of the retired British Generals gave public expression to the view that the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, should be tried for the excesses connected with the Iraq war.

In India, too, while being attached to an Army regiment in Kashmir in 1952, I have heard serving Generals in Messes bitterly criticising the declaration of cease fire in 1948 by the Government just when the Indian Army was about to throw Pakistani intruders out of the entire State.

Gen. Thimmayya's is the well-known case of a General resigning in protest against not having his way, but he was promptly put in his place by the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, with his famous statement in Parliament, "I cannot congratulate the General on his decision"!

V. K. Krishna Menon's highhandedness and playing favourites put the backs up of many senior officers but they continued to behave like gentlemen. Gen. K. Sundarji caused a sensation, but only long after he retired, by going public on the unsavoury aspects of the Bofors scandal. That is about all, as far as India is concerned.

Sometimes one wishes our Generals would consider it to be well within their rights to tell their political masters in private how the latter's blatant trifling with norms and proprieties can progressively affect the Defence services as well.