Lt. Gen. Paul Funk, a native of Roundup, served as a commander in the 1991 Gulf War.

BILLINGS (AP) — Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Director Paul Wolfowitz badly misjudged Iraq and what's needed to remove Saddam Hussein, says a retired general who commanded an armored division in Iraq in 1991.

Those top civilian leaders "think all wars are small wars that will be over quickly," Lt. Gen. Paul E. Funk told The Billings Gazette in a telephone interview Friday.

They made a big mistake in underestimating the Iraqis, and they think air power alone can win the war, he said.

"The highest levels (Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz) think this is simple, that the Iraqis would fall apart like the Taliban" in Afghanistan, he said. "The idea that the Iraqis would welcome us was very naive. There are a lot of people there who have a lot to lose if Saddam goes."

Funk is a native of Roundup and a graduate of Montana State University. As a major general in the 1991 Gulf War he commanded the 3rd Armored Division. After the war, he received his third star and assumed command of the III Corps, eight mechanized infantry and armored divisions at Fort Hood, Texas.

He retired in 1996 and now teaches in Austin, Texas.

"We should have at least three armored divisions there, plus the 1st Cavalry," Funk told the Gazette, repeating his earlier warnings that not enough heavy forces were in place at the start of the war.

"We need overwhelming combat power," he said. "But Rumsfeld, he knows everything. He's run a drug company, so why listen to generals?"

Rumsfeld was CEO of drug manufacturer G.D. Searle after leaving the Defense Department in 1977.

"The senior leaders have the firm notion that air power can do it all," Funk said. "Send your most powerfully equipped troops so that there is not a contest.

"This isn't a football game, where if we win 14-13, it's a victory," he said. "The score should be 100-0," as in 1991, when a U.S.-led coalition drove Iraq out of Kuwait.

Funk laughed at Rumsfeld's latest suggestion that the United States might lay siege to Baghdad and wait for an internal uprising to overthrow Saddam.

"We'll be camping on the outskirts of the city for years," he said.

Funk said one good aspect of the war so far is that the Republican Guard has been coming outside the city limits to fight. He had said previously that getting Saddam's best forces out in the open would be the best method of destroying them.

Under Funk, the 3rd Armored Division in 1991 destroyed the Iraqis' Tawalkana mechanized division.

"We destroyed so many of its people and equipment that it was not reconstituted. It was the most modern of the Republican Guards," he said.

Funk said he was disturbed about the situation at Nasiriyah, where the 1st Marine Division was taking relatively heavy casualties.

"I am not badmouthing the Marines," Funk said. "We are placing the courage and the lives of our Marines in harm's way without armor. We need armored protection for those kids. Without it, it is bloody for everybody."