WASHINGTON, Feb 2: Military chiefs expressed outrage on Thursday over a ‘reprehensible’ Washington Post cartoon which used a US soldier who has lost his arms and legs in battle to portray the state of US military readiness.

“We’re all very upset about that,” Gen Peter Schoomaker, the army chief of staff, told reporters.

Gen Schoomaker and the other military chiefs took the unusual step of signing a a joint letter to the Washington Post blasting the cartoon by Tom Toles, the newspaper’s editorial cartoonist.

“Using the likeness of a service member who has lost his arms and legs in war as the central theme of a cartoon was beyond tasteless,” the letter said, which the Post published on Thursday.

It was signed by Gen Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the vice chairman and the heads of the army, navy, air force and marine corps.

The cartoon, which was published on Jan 29, showed a heavily bandaged soldier with no arms or legs.

At his side, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, dressed as a doctor, says: “I’m listing your condition as battle hardened.”

The cartoon alluded to comments Mr Rumsfeld made last week rejecting a Pentagon-commissioned study that warned that the overstretched army was becoming a ‘thin green line’.

The chiefs said the Post was free to criticise the state of military readiness.

“However, The Post and Mr Toles have done a disservice to readers and to The Post’s reputation by using such a callous depiction of those who volunteered to defend this nation and, as a result, suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds,” it said.

They extolled wounded veterans as ‘brave men and women with a sense of purpose and selfless commitment that causes battle-hardened warriors to pause’.

“While The Post and some of its readers may not agree with the war or its conduct, these men and women and their families are owed the decency of not having a cartoon make light of their tremendous physical sacrifices,” it said.

“As the joint chiefs, we rarely put our hand to one letter, but we cannot let this reprehensible cartoon go unanswered,” it said.

In a story about the letter, the Post quoted Mr Toles as saying he never intended the cartoon to be read as a personal attack or a derogatory comment on the service and sacrifice of US soldiers.

He said that in thinking about Mr Rumsfeld’s remarks ‘what came soon to mind was the catastrophic level of injuries the Army and members of the armed services have sustained’.

“I thought my portrayal of it was a fair depiction of the reality of the situation,” he said. —AFP