Generals more frank after Frank.

USAToday has an article about how the Generals are telling it more like it is now but, it would seem, that it's in order to perform a little CYA.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg said the change in tone was the result of the Bush administration trying to shift responsibility for the war onto the shoulders of the generals.

"The administration has pushed it to them," said the former commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, who served in Iraq.

Until recently, Army leaders had played "the good soldiers," he said. "Now they're saying, 'Hey, if my name is going to be associated with this, and the good name of the United States Army's going to be associated with this ... then by God, I'm going to have a say in it.'"

The generals were attempting to insulate themselves from future criticism that they tried to sugarcoat events in Iraq, he said.

All the generals were familiar with Dereliction of Duty, the book by now-Col. H.R. McMaster that criticizes the senior military leaders of the Vietnam era for not speaking out as the country slipped into war in Southeast Asia. They are trying to avoid being written about in the same way, Kellogg said.