Generals Against Rumsfeld... and nukes?

The number of retired generals calling for Rumsfeld's resignation is up to five, reports Think Progress (the NY Times has the number at six now)). I caught Major General John Batiste on the News Hour this evening, and it was an odd interview. The general repeatedly cited 'military culture' when pressed with questions he didn't want to answer. It called to mind movies about cops or military academies-- you know, 'no squealers,' you don't break ranks, etc. And discipline and uniformity are, of course, necessary to any functioning military anywhere, at any time.

The other thing about the interview is that their criticism (Batiste says he hasn't spoken with any of the other generals and this isn't any sort of a concerted effort) is focused squarely and solely on Rumsfeld. He wouldn't even use the names of any other officials.

But here's why I mention the Iran/nuclear connection. Later in the evening, I ran across an interview with Seymour Hersh, of which there have been many this week. And something he said made me wonder if the generals' timing is about more than just Iraq.

It's pure speculation on my part, but Hersh has plenty to say about some administration officials' long-standing eagerness to develop "tactical nuclear weapons," and Bush has been promoting them himself. It's very Carlyle Group, you could say-- right-wingers with connections to defense contractors get to live out a Rambo fantasy and score a few million bucks at the same time. He also states in this interview that it's the military who have tried to keep the Bushies from following this path.

Many of them also work for large defense contractors. There’s a lot of inherent problems in that, too, but nonetheless, in this case the board is headed by a guy named Dr. Bill Schneider, William Schneider, a former -- very conservative guy, very outspoken. Schneider is among a small group of very influential members of the Bush government, who in 2001 produced a paper, just as Bush was coming into office for the first term, they produced a paper advocating or saying, ‘Let's not rule out the use of nuclear weapons. There is a need for tactical nuclear weapons, and they should be in the arsenal and accepted as a rational part of the arsenal, particularly when you're going after hard targets like the underground nuclear facilities in North Korea and Iran, if you were to target them.’

And the people that signed that report include Schneider, as I say, but also Stephen Hadley, who is now the National Security Adviser, Stephen Cambone, who’s the head of the intelligence for the Pentagon and one of Rumsfeld's closest advisers, and also Robert Joseph, who’s the Under Secretary of State for Nonproliferation Affairs, the man who replaced John Bolton in that job and who's been very much a hawk and very tough on Iran in public and even tougher in private. And so, you have these very influential people advocating that tact nukes have some sense and some bearing in the policy.

And I've been told that in the last few months a debate has been sort of ongoing inside the highest levels of the military, and the debate is simply between those senior generals and admirals -- who think using and even planning or talking about using a nuclear weapon in Iran is wacko -- and the White House, because the White House wants it kept in the plan. There's a lot of tension there.

So that's what I'm getting at. Our top military men might have been unhappy with the Iraq situation for years, but decided that the saber-rattling over Iran meant it was time to try and stop the Bush war machine in its tracks.

As for Fearless Leader, what will become of his familiar refrain that he ignores polls and politics but always listens to military commanders? Sure, Rove's playbook accounts for the occasional Cleland, Kerry or Murtha, but there aren't enough Swift Boaters out there to smear a half dozen generals at the same time.