Today’s NY Times highlights an article about officers studying at Ft Leavenworth, Kansas and their debates about Iraq. Since the article was written by Elizabeth Bumiller, who has a pretty bad record for critical judgment of George Bu$h and his works, it’s not surprising that she gets many points wrong.

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — Here at the intellectual center of the United States Army, two elite officers were deep in debate at lunch on a recent day over who bore more responsibility for mistakes in Iraq — the former defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, or the generals who acquiesced to him.

“The secretary of defense is an easy target,” argued one of the officers, Maj. Kareem P. Montague, 34, a Harvard graduate and a commander in the Third Infantry Division, which was the first to reach Baghdad in the 2003 invasion. “It’s easy to pick on the political appointee.”

“But he’s the one that’s responsible,” retorted Maj. Michael J. Zinno, 40, a military planner who worked at the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the former American civilian administration in Iraq.

No, Major Montague shot back, it was more complicated: the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the top commanders were part of the decision to send in a small invasion force and not enough troops for the occupation. Only Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff who was sidelined after he told Congress that it would take several hundred thousand troops in Iraq, spoke up in public.

“You didn’t hear any of them at the time, other than General Shinseki, screaming, saying that this was untenable,” Major Montague said.

The article examines the nuts and bolts of “how we got there” and “did we bring enough party favors?” without looking at the real question: should we have actually gone to the party at all?”

Ms Bumiller uncharacteristically assigns herself a place in the debate:

Discussions between a New York Times reporter and dozens of young majors in five Leavenworth classrooms over two days — all unusual for their frankness in an Army that has traditionally presented a facade of solidarity to the outside world — showed a divide in opinion. Officers were split over whether Mr. Rumsfeld, the military leaders or both deserved blame for what they said were the major errors in the war: sending in a small invasion force and failing to plan properly for the occupation.

Having opinions about Mr Rumsfeld and his admirable but poorly-timed theory of transformation are worthwhile for field grade officers. It trains them to think for the entire force should they ever attain the exalted rank of senior general. But these are not the central questions of our Iraq journey. There’s a good chance that history will judge a small force was sent in because a small force was all that was available for the adventure, and men with political agendas searched for justification for what they wanted to do and were beguiled and enabled by a man who invented the intelligence “proof” they wanted.

But the consensus was that not even after Vietnam was the Army’s internal criticism as harsh or the second-guessing so painful, and that airing the arguments on the record, as sanctioned by Leavenworth’s senior commanders, was part of a concerted effort to force change.

Not having been there I can’t judge whether Ms Bumiller has allowed her political prejudices to color her reporting, but the thrust of post-Viet Nam debate was not about force manpower utilized or the competence of generals. It was about the dissolution of an army through the misapplication of its strengths, and how to avoid such destruction in the future.

As Ms Bumiller presents the debate it is about how many trees are in the forest. It might be wise for our erstwhile generals to put down their calculators, use their surveyor’s transits to measure the forest and get on to the real question: how did we allow our army to be put in the forest?

“We have an obligation that if our civilian leaders give us an order, unless it is illegal, immoral or unethical, then we’re supposed to execute it, and to not do so would be considered insubordinate,” said Major Timothy Jacobsen, another student. “How do you define what is truly illegal, immoral or unethical? At what point do you cross that threshold where this is no longer right, I need to raise my hand or resign or go to the media?”

General Caldwell, who was the top military aide from 2002 to 2004 to the deputy defense secretary at the time, Paul D. Wolfowitz, an architect of the Iraq war, would not talk about the meetings he had with Mr. Wolfowitz about the battle plans at the time. “We did have those discussions, and he would engage me on different things, but I’d feel very uncomfortable talking,” General Caldwell said.

Offhand, I’d say LTG Caldwell missed some of the classes on moral leadership at West Point. If he had discomfort talking about some subjects it was his institutional responsibility to report this to his military superior.

Col. Gregory Fontenot, a Leavenworth instructor, said it was typical of young officers to feel that the senior commanders had not spoken up for their interests, and that he had felt the same way when he was their age. But Colonel Fontenot, who commanded a battalion in the Persian Gulf war and a brigade in Bosnia and has since retired, said he questioned whether Americans really wanted a four-star general to stand up publicly and say no to the president of a nation where civilians control the armed forces.

When the professional leadership of an army can see the amateur civilians are opening a barrel of worms it is their constitutional responsibility to stand up and say “no.” Anything less is a betrayal of their oaths of office. That’s what we paid you for, Colonel