Washington, D.C ? Military leaders have angrily denounced as “beyond tasteless” a Washington Post editorial cartoon featuring a likeness of a severely wounded soldier and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as an attending doctor who says, “I’m listing your condition as ‘battle hardened.'”

The cartoon by Post artist Tom Toles appeared in Sunday’s newspaper.

It reflected the view of some that Bush administration officials do not recognize that U.S. forces are being worn out by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last month, in response to a Pentagon-commissioned report that said the Army was stretched so thin that it had become a “thin green line,” Rumsfeld said the war-fighting experience had made U.S. troops “battle hardened” – stronger rather than weaker.

In a letter to the Post signed by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Edmund Giambastiani Jr., vice chairman, and chiefs of the four military services, they called the cartoon “a callous depiction of those who have volunteered to defend this nation and as a result have suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds.”

Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt said, “While I certainly can understand the strong feelings, I took it to be a cartoon about the state of the Army.”