Washington ? Pulling rank, President Bush on Friday rebuffed recommendations from a growing number of retired generals that he replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

“He has my full support,” the president said of Rumsfeld.

Bush’s strong endorsement, conveyed in a statement released by the White House while Bush was at Camp David, Md., for the weekend, appeared designed to blunt a rising clamor from within the ranks of retired commanders for Rumsfeld’s ouster.

Six retired generals have called for Rumsfeld to resign, accusing him of mishandling the Iraq war, ignoring advice of field commanders and having an arrogant management style.

The unusual outspokenness of the retired commanders, some of whom commanded forces in Iraq, has created a buzz in classes at Fort Leavenworth, where every senior officer in the U.S. Army goes for two or three rounds of training during his or her career.

“It’s in the Constitution,” said Janet Wray, a spokeswoman for the fort. “Officers know that you don’t criticize the civilian leadership.”

Kansas University professors who teach at the fort agreed.

“They’re well aware of the chain of command,” said Ted Wilson, a KU history professor who teaches an occasional class at the fort.

Donald Haider-Markel, a KU political science professor, said the dissent expressed by the retired flag officers is rare.

“Their general attitude about civilian leadership is that, ‘It doesn’t matter if I like ’em or dislike ’em, I’ve got a job to do,'” he said.

He noted that the defense secretary was unpopular with Army brass before Sept. 11 and the war in Iraq because of his efforts to transform the military from a slow-moving bureaucracy into a lean, technology-driven warfighting machine. Add to that the frustrations of fighting the insurgency in Iraq, Haider-Markel said, and “I’m kind of surprised it took as long as it did” for criticism to boil over.

Wilson said civilian leaders owe it to the military to give officers “due credence” when making warfighting decisions. But officers rarely take their complaints public, retired or not.

“This is somewhat unusual,” Wilson said of the generals. “By and large, these senior guys bite their lips.”