My Point Exactly.

Herbert Meyer analyzes the statements from generals calling for Rumsfeld's head and finds them lacking in specifics. That's why I suspect that their real complaints are too petty to admit.

And Richard Brookhiser makes the persuasive case that the way the war has been fought so far has been more, not less, effective than it would have been had the career military experts been deferred to.

The transformed military toppled the Taliban government in quick time, using Special Forces on horseback and pilotless drones. Point to Mr. Rumsfeld. In Iraq, Baghdad fell in three weeks, but the war against the insurgency has lasted three years. Point to his critics? Mr. Rumsfeld’s great failing, in their eyes, was not sending in enough troops. If we had had more boots on the ground, so the indictment runs, the insurgency either would not have blossomed or could have been crushed. But this too is an issue with two sides. More boots can mean more firepower. But they can also mean more targets. More boots would also have meant a draft, which would mean more neophyte troops.

The cliche is that we tend to fight the last war is true. And the last war was Vietnam. Some generals concluded that being mobile and presenting fewer targets made sense against an enemy who hides among the population. Others just thought we needed more boots on the ground. The latter seem to be the ones who resent Rumsfeld, who, after all, was tasked with transforming the military and then was called upon to fight a war while doing so.