A blog published by Foreign Policy magazine quotes a faculty member of the Army War College and a prominent writer on defense policy as saying the college had in recent years become unfriendly territory for some academic speech.

In a blog posting published Wednesday, Thomas E. Ricks, a contributing editor to Foreign Policy, wrote that Steven Metz, chairman of the college’s regional strategy and planning department, had admitted that he had urged faculty members not to talk to Mr. Ricks about the Iraq War back in 2005. Mr. Ricks, a veteran war correspondent, quotes Mr. Metz as apologetically explaining in a recent note that the Army was trying to improve relations with Donald H. Rumsfeld, who was then secretary of defense, and that several members of the college’s Strategic Studies Institute, where Mr. Metz teaches, “had been verbally flogged” after Mr. Ricks’s articles portrayed them “as more critical of the administration than we intended.”

“Many of us, including me, stopped doing interviews,” the note from Mr. Metz is quoted as saying. “Luckily, the climate eventually changed.”

In a comment appended to the blog item, Mr. Metz wrote that the War College “operates under a policy of academic freedom but it is, by necessity, different than academic freedom in the civilian world,” based on concerns that professors’ comments might wrongly be portrayed as representing the views of those higher in command. Mr. Metz also said that “I regret that I kept my misgivings about the Iraq adventure largely to myself” and that expressing them “would have been the right thing to do.”

In a blog posting published today, Mr. Ricks quotes Mark Perry, the author of several books on defense issues, as saying brass at the college “clearly were very upset” that he was invited there after he expressed a view they did not want to hear. Mr. Perry is also quoted as saying that college officials have “curtailed the curriculum so that their students are not exposed to radical Islam,” which he likens to failing to let students read Karl Marx during the cold war.

Carol Kerr, a spokeswoman for the Army War College, issued the following statement in response to Mr. Ricks’s blog postings:

“Staff and faculty of the U.S. Army War College are entitled to full freedom in research and publication subject to the authorities and responsibilities of the college.

“The process by which publication and teaching is reviewed does not limit content; does require an accurate statement of policy; and does require that the author’s opinion be substantiated in accordance with the institute’s standards of scholarly research and analysis.

“The college invites nationally prominent speakers to present diverse views on topics of national security, and it sponsors analytical research and publication that deepens understanding of the topics of the day — to include those that are controversial.” —Peter Schmidt