LJWorld.com

One of the Army's top generals said Monday he's "uncomfortable" with recent criticism leveled at Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by retired military officers.

"I would not ever want to see the military politicized," Lt. Gen. David Petraeus said during a question-and-answer session at Kansas University's Dole Institute of Politics. "And I would not want to see generals chosen on the basis of whether they'd keep their mouths shut in retirement, rather than on the basis of whether they can provide sound military advice."

Petraeus, commander of the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, spent two and a half years in Iraq following the U.S. invasion in 2003 - much of it supervising the training of a new Iraqi army. He took command at Leavenworth in September.

He explicitly ducked the question at the heart of some generals' calls for Rumsfeld's resignation: whether the secretary ignored and suppressed the advice of officers that could have eased America's job in Iraq, including recommendations for higher troop levels.

"I don't know what happened in 2002 and 2003," Petraeus said of the preinvasion planning period. "I was not at that level, obviously, so I don't know about the numbers."

He said the retired generals' free speech should be weighed against civilian control of the military.

"I am wrestling with that one," Petraeus said.

The general spoke before an overflow crowd estimated by Dole Institute officials at 400 people, including several dozen ROTC cadets who stood at the back of the main hall.

He presented a list of 14 observations about soldiering from his time in Iraq, with the broad themes that counterinsurgency efforts are improved when soldiers understand the language and culture of a nation, when they can help develop effective local leaders and when they don't make more enemies than they take off the streets.

Those lessons, he said, helped reopen the University of Mosul, and resulted in widespread improvements to the Iraqi infrastructure.

But he conceded under questioning that the U.S. military should have remembered some of the lessons from the Vietnam War.

"We had learned lessons before, and we had forgotten some of those lessons," he said. "We're certainly going to endeavor this time not to let history repeat itself in that regard."

Larry McElwain, of Lawrence, whose son recently finished a tour of duty in Afghanistan, said afterward that Petraeus' presentation contained much "good information."

"I've felt all along there's a lot of the story not being told," McElwain said. "We are nation-building. It's slow and hard and tough."