One point not to forget in the exchange of volleys between veteran U.S. Rep. John P. Murtha and President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials on the need to withdraw American forces from Iraq is the congressman's extraordinarily close relationship over the years with senior U.S. military personnel.

The most recent statements in the debate were made Monday by the Johnstown Democrat at a press conference in his district and by Mr. Cheney, who called criticism of the war corrupt and shameless revisionism in a speech in Washington. On Tuesday, the administration seemed to send a different signal when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States may not need to maintain its current troop levels in Iraq "very much longer."

Senior and other members of the armed forces are in public very assiduous in their respect of the American president in his role of commander in chief, no matter who that president may be or what their private opinions of his policies may be. That is not to say that American military leaders are being insincere when they express public support of those policies. It is also not to say that they would be wrong to stake out an independent position in their statements. Particularly in congressional testimony they owe Congress and the country an honest assessment of the nation's military situation.

It is also worth noting, however, that the Bush administration has sometimes punished senior U.S. military officers who have expressed positions at variance with its policies. The best case in point was U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Erik K. Shinseki, who was retired early and had his farewell ceremony snubbed by senior administration defense officials for having testified that hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops would be needed to occupy Iraq after it was conquered.

There is thus considerable incentive for senior uniformed officials to make their views known indirectly, for example, through Congress, when their opinions vary from those of administration officials, starting with President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

In that context, it is very likely that the advocacy of withdrawal by Mr. Murtha, the congressman who is perhaps closest of all to senior military officers, reflects the considered views of some or many of those in the service's top ranks. Rather than taking themselves out of the game by opposing Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, they may be telling the American public through Mr. Murtha, whom they trust, that it is time for U.S. forces to go home, to leave Iraq to the Iraqis.

If it is unseemly for Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, with their own undistinguished or absent war records, to hammer at Mr. Murtha, a Vietnam veteran with a distinguished record and the trust of American soldiers and veterans, it is especially wrong for them to undercut him when he is likely delivering to them and the public the frank opinion of the war of senior American officers.