Military Keeps Up the Heat

On Darth Rumsfeld:

V CORPS HEADQUARTERS, near the Kuwait-Iraq border, March 31 — Long-simmering tensions between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Armycommanders have erupted in a series of complaints from officers on the Iraqi battlefield that the Pentagon has not sent enough troops to wage the war as they want to fight it.

Here today, raw nerves were obvious as officers compared Mr. Rumsfeld to Robert S. McNamara, an architect of the Vietnam War who failed to grasp the political and military realities of Vietnam.

One colonel, who spoke on the condition that his name be withheld, was among the officers criticizing decisions to limit initial deployments of troops to the region. "He wanted to fight this war on the cheap," the colonel said. "He got what he wanted."