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Fri. Sep 05, 2003

A Commitment Crunch, Part Three

A Commitment Crunch, Part Three – “Part Three,” you ask? I know I’m going on and on about this, but I think the Bush administration’s decision to go back to the UN for military help in Iraq marks an important and somewhat surprising change in our post-war strategy. And I think it also offers some points for judgement.

After some of comments on my original entry, “A Commitment Crunch,” I think I need to make something clear. For me, this isn’t a reassessment of whether we should have gone into Iraq. The alternative is no better than it ever was, and, for me, the strategic intent of this action is as valid as it has always been (if you still need convincing, you might want to check out Al Qaeda’s latest position statement, as our intervention in Iraq put Al Qaeda’s greatest fear right in their backyard).

My point is that Bush appears to have some very real completion issues (Clinton did, too, if you remember the more sordid details of his early encounters with Monica … but that’s another kind of completion issue). There’s an ugly pattern here.

Remember Tora Bora? We now know (and heavily suspected at the time) that there were thousands of Al Qaeda holed up there, including upper leadership and probably Elvis bin Laden himself. It was The Last Stand in Afghanistan. At the front door, we placed US Special Forces and troops from a couple of local “warlords.” The back door was more problematic and a lot less accessible. It was decided that rather than use any US forces there, we’d simply make a deal with Afghan forces to close those mountain passes as possible escape routes.

They screwed us. They got bribed, and Al Qaeda got out, while elements of the 10th Mountain Division in country were busy … “acclimating.” Or something other than blocking mountain passes.

In short, we had the cat in the bag, but we didn’t seal it, and now we’re chasing kittens all over the place. We were unwilling (or even worse, unable) to commit the resources to properly finish the job. We tried to do it “on the cheap.”

Sound familiar?

In the first case, you can make a fair argument that we have expended billions of dollars and uncountable highly skilled man hours over the past 20 months chasing people we already had in the bag in Afghanistan. All because we were unwilling/unable to commit a tiny fraction of those resources at the critical moment. In the second case, you can make the argument that millions of Iraqis will have a much longer and more miserable road to stability and recovery because a tiny group of a few men in Washington came up with a totally inadequate and naive plan, and then were unwilling to commit the resources to properly finish the job they’d started.

As for the impact this naked lack of commitment has on the US (and we do remember that should be secondary in importance to the impact on the Iraqi people, don’t we?), it’s probably too early to say for sure, but I’m hard pressed to put a positive spin on it. You could say, “the US returning to the international community is a Good Thing,” but that assumes all will be forgotten and forgiven. And you know that won’t be the case. You could add, “whatever concessions the UN obtains from the US in exchange for help in Iraq will be justifiable, and represent a trade of control over future plans for the resources to implement the plans.”

But that merely rams home the near complete “about face” by the Bush administration. They said the US could do this with a Coalition of the Willing, and neither international approval nor help was required, as we had the resources to do the job. I think that last part is still true, but it turns out Bush administration hasn’t been and isn’t willing to pay the price of committing those resources. Their first plan was so out of touch with the reality on the ground, it was abandoned three weeks in. Their second plan, which might as well be called “Let Rummy Do It,” lasted for five months, and now they admit that it, too, has not worked.

Here’s what’s telling: rather than simply admit that, and redouble our own efforts towards the long set goals, the Bush administration is lowering the life boats on the whole strategy of “A Coalition of the Willing.” In effect, they are saying, “We are no longer willing to do the job on our own.”

The more I think about it, the more appalling it is to me.

Perhaps the Bush political strategy is to go ahead and get this nose rubbing and crow eating out of the way, and be made to look very small and humble while there’s still 14 months left to attempt to reverse that image before Election Day. I don’t know, and frankly, I don’t care. I’m more concerned with a larger strategy, you know, “The War On Terror,” and the larger need of the Iraqi people to quickly achieve stability. In fact, I think those two go hand in hand. But those strategies now have blown engines, and are oddly being sent to the Foreign Car Shop for repair (where they were neither designed nor built).

For those who might think I’m just another armchair general piling on with Monday Morning Quarterbacking on a fashionable topic, I’d first remind you that I was asking back in May, “Where Was The Plan?” But perhaps you’d prefer the view of someone who was in on the planning. Former Secretary of the Army Tom White is coming out with a book, and has some sharp words for the Bush administration’s post-war policies: “We did not conduct the war this way and we should not continue rebuilding the country in a haphazard manner … The result will be a financial disaster, more lives lost, chaos in Iraq and squandered American goodwill.”

Phil Carter notes, ‘This may be Monday-morning quarterbacking, but it’s extremely well-informed Monday-morning quarterbacking by a man who’s thrown a few footballs in his time [...] he was a part of the pre-war planning process in the Pentagon until his departure in May 2003, so he knows what he’s talking about—much more than this author. If Tom White thinks we screwed up the post-war planning, and failed to devote adequate resources to the problem, he’s basing that opinion on a lot more evidence than any other writers I’ve read lately.”

“If I had to pin the fault on one aspect of the post-war planning, it was the ‘group think’ that pervaded the White House, National Security Council and Pentagon during the process [...] No ‘Plan B’ was created or effectively resourced, and when our planning assumptions proved faulty, it was too late to spin up a Plan B. In a perfect world, we would’ve deployed enough of a force package to Kuwait to stage for Plan B if necessary—but we did not [...] The best way to mitigate this kind of planning risk is to broaden the planning process and build multiple courses of actions (COAs) which account for each probable set of assumptions.”

“Luckily, there is no shortage of planners on the Joint Staff to conduct such contingency planning. Nor is there any shortage of civilian experts with security clearances to do this kind of planning for RAND or another think tank. All that’s required is a willingness among the denizens of the E-Ring and West Wing to consider ideas from the outside, and to act on them.”

Could there be any more irony in that last sentence? We’ve learned the White House gave Rumsfeld the BullHeaded total control, and let him run with it. For months, he argued everything was fine. And we all know how open he is to outside ideas.

I heard a quote yesterday that was along the lines of “we don’t manage the rebuilding of Iraq from the White House.” Our MBA President wants those he appoints to do their jobs, and pass their requested needs up the line for approval, just like in the tidy corporate world. That is apparently the view he takes on rebuilding Iraq.

But even in the corporate world, there are some critical tasks where the CEO has to roll up his sleeves and be more directly involved. It’s usually those tasks that are most critical to the continued future health of the company, and/or the continued employment of the CEO. There are some tasks where the stockholders and board of directors aren’t going to accept an answer like, “the guy I put in charge of it lied to me for 5 months, saying that everything was fine. I had no idea his plan wasn’t really working, and that things were so messed up.” [Sidenote: In the corporate world, such a department head would likely be fired or demoted]

However, the board and the stockholders remember the guy who once held the CEO job, and the sign he had on his desk … “The Buck Stops Here.”

Enough for now. As you may have noticed, this is a point of judgement for me. I’m sure I’ll therefore have no choice but to return to it.

But before I close, it’s time for a Comedy Break, with Rich and Rick!!!

Rich: Dubya needs to roll back all those tax cuts that are giving us this half trillion budget shortfall and plunk the dough down on his Iraq adventure.

Rick: No surprise here, this is what happens when you elect a liberal.

Stop it, you guys are killin’ me. Where do you come up with this stuff?