Washington ? Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is accustomed to the barbs of public life. Any number of people, for the most part Democrats, have been complaining about him since 1969, when he joined the Nixon administration.

But a different roster of A-list critics is now finding fault with Rumsfeld’s management of the military and the war in Iraq. And the sharpest jabs are coming from noteworthy Republicans, including Sens. John McCain of Arizona; Trent Lott, the former Senate majority leader from Mississippi; and Susan Collins, the Maine senator who just helped shepherd intelligence reform through Congress.

Outside government, William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, called for Rumsfeld to resign, writing that the soldiers “deserve a better defense secretary than the one we have.”

He was joined by Thomas Donnelly, a defense analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, who called Rumsfeld “an arrogant and isolated Beltway bigwig.”

Taken together, Rumsfeld’s critics are voicing pent-up frustrations over the conduct and cost of the war in Iraq, its effect on an overtaxed military and a series of Pentagon scandals and investigations that include the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, the use of prewar intelligence and ties to an Iraqi opposition group, and federal convictions linked to a no-bid contract for Air Force tanker planes.

“This is a trend,” said defense analyst Loren Thompson, president of the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area defense think tank. “What’s happening now is that, with the problems in Iraq appearing not to improve, all the reservations about Rumsfeld are becoming more acceptable to voice in public. It is so rare for senior senators from the secretary’s own party to say they have no confidence in him. The fact of the matter is his days are numbered now.”

Not so, says the White House. President Bush’s aides have been buffeted for more than a week with questions, and at every turn they’ve offered assurances that Rumsfeld is staying.

“The president believes Secretary Rumsfeld is someone who is an important member of our team and someone who is helping us to move forward as we defeat the ideology of hatred that leads to terrorism,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday.

Rumsfeld spokesman Bryan Whitman said, “There are comments from (Capitol) Hill criticizing him and comments supporting him. The secretary has nothing new to say about this. He’s honored to be serving the president and honored to be a part of his second term.”

The impetus for the calls for Rumsfeld’s resignation was the secretary’s Dec. 8 meeting with troops in Kuwait, and his answer to a soldier’s complaint about a lack of armored vehicles for duty in Iraq.

Rumsfeld replied: “You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”