Two common themes in Ken White's remarks at Tacitus are (1) the guys on the ground are doing the right sorts of things and their biggest obstacle is a constipated bureaucracy that doesn't understand "just get it done; and (2) the guys at the top in Washington are on board with the approach being taken in Iraq, but they do a terrible job of communicating to the public what's going on.
In this post by praktike, "Winning Ugly," he remarks on an internal piece that seems to have been missing from the neocons' serene view of reverse dominos.
[The success of the 1st ID in Tikrit] suggests to me that Boss Tweed would be far more capable of rebuilding Iraq than Woodrow Wilson. Which reminds me of a key problem in neoconservative thought: there doesn't seem to be a well-developed theory of how power and idealism relate to one another. While the winning of Iraqi "hearts and minds" hasn't been much of a factor in any of our successes, money and old-fashioned power politics has been decisive.
Ken responded that the bureaucracy just didn't know how to do "Boss Tweed." And an exchange with other commenters followed regarding how what was needed was for Bush to just tell the government bureaucrats to "get it done." But that such an outburst was unlikely to occur before the election.
'fraid that set me off on a real rant about either the total cynicism or complete incompetence of the White House, and which would he rather it be.
Too few Boss Tweeds and too many Wilsonian idealists is not a problem primarily of a prissy "idealistic" bureaucracy. I know on the military side of things there's been a total b*lls up in a lot of the logistics and cash flow -- not getting the right resources to the right places at the right times.
But on the civilian side of things, it's not been the petty procurement and accounting tyrants who have been the problem. If anything, the non-military side has suffered from a failure by some of the Admin's chief ideologues to follow some basic principles of standard contracting practices -- government or private sector. The guys in the OSD, who controlled the purse strings of the CPA, not State or anyone else, tossed around some whopping big non-compete contracts that didn't have the right TORs or the right people overseeing them. And they keep awarding new contracts to the same old guys.
If the leadership in the WH actually is on board with what's taking place on the ground, the disconnect between reality and rhetoric is absolutely astonishing. The whole week in NY was nothing but a martial version of Wilsonianism on steroids.
So what if George Bush says to the US Government, "just get it done" and they all snap to and start "doing it." Get what done? Freedom on the march, wiping the bad guys off the face of the earth, democracy -- what in that sloganeering is supposed to provide direction? And if it does provide some direction, it's sure not the direction Irving has been touting as the governing vector on the ground.
From this distance, the civilian side has been driven consistently by ideological decisionmaking at all the critical points until the handover, when the adults were finally put in charge in Baghdad. We're talking about plain old-fashioned applied common sense, which has been sorely lacking through most of the adventure outside the armed forces. That's not bureaucracy, that's a bunch of guys who did an end-run of the bureaucracy. If they'd used the bureaucracy the way it was supposed to be used, they might not be scrambling right now to try to explain where $8 billion of Iraqi oil revenue went to after it slipped through their hands.
This isn't a simple matter of a stodgy old bureaucracy that needs to get their heads handed to them by the CEO. I hate to be cynical, but if I'm to believe you and Irving about the WH being part of the unity of purpose and tactics on the ground in Baghdad, Bush/Cheney and Karl Rove have decided to sell the world a bill of goods. They're not talking about what we're doing, and they're disguising the very objectives we are pursuing, because that wouldn't get the juices fired up and enough of the troops marching into the voting booths in November. It would also mean they couldn't accuse Kerry of undermining the morale of the troops by setting a target for withdrawal or for not being willing to "stay the course." It would become evident that this whole pissing match over who's got the biggest set or whose is longest is just a bunch of garbage.
Sorry, just don't buy that the guys at the top simply have a poor communication track record. One option is they believe what they say -- in which case they are idiots and, thank heavens, aren't really running things, but that's certainly no reason to keep them in office for four more years. Or they're running an incredible risk with a cynical charade -- conducting a highly iffy conflict out the backroom on terms totally inconsistent with campaign rhetoric so that they can win the election. If it's the latter and they do win, they (and probably us) will some day pay big-time one way or another. Things do have a nasty habit of coming back to bite you.
Facts are facts, but perceptions are reality.
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Too few Boss Tweeds and too many Wilsonian idealists is not a problem primarily of a prissy "idealistic" bureaucracy. I know on the military side of things there's been a total b*lls up in a lot of the logistics and cash flow -- not getting the right resources to the right places at the right times. But on the civilian side of things, it's not been the petty procurement and accounting tyrants who have been the problem. If anything, the non-military side has suffered from a failure by some of the Admin's chief ideologues to follow some basic principles of standard contracting practices -- government or private sector. The guys in the OSD, who controlled the purse strings of the CPA, not State or anyone else, tossed around some whopping big non-compete contracts that didn't have the right TORs or the right people overseeing them. And they keep awarding new contracts to the same old guys. If the leadership in the WH actually is on board with what's taking place on the ground, the disconnect between reality and rhetoric is absolutely astonishing. The whole week in NY was nothing but a martial version of Wilsonianism on steroids. So what if George Bush says to the US Government, "just get it done" and they all snap to and start "doing it." Get what done? Freedom on the march, wiping the bad guys off the face of the earth, democracy -- what in that sloganeering is supposed to provide direction? And if it does provide some direction, it's sure not the direction Irving has been touting as the governing vector on the ground. From this distance, the civilian side has been driven consistently by ideological decisionmaking at all the critical points until the handover, when the adults were finally put in charge in Baghdad. We're talking about plain old-fashioned applied common sense, which has been sorely lacking through most of the adventure outside the armed forces. That's not bureaucracy, that's a bunch of guys who did an end-run of the bureaucracy. If they'd used the bureaucracy the way it was supposed to be used, they might not be scrambling right now to try to explain where $8 billion of Iraqi oil revenue went to after it slipped through their hands. This isn't a simple matter of a stodgy old bureaucracy that needs to get their heads handed to them by the CEO. I hate to be cynical, but if I'm to believe you and Irving about the WH being part of the unity of purpose and tactics on the ground in Baghdad, Bush/Cheney and Karl Rove have decided to sell the world a bill of goods. They're not talking about what we're doing, and they're disguising the very objectives we are pursuing, because that wouldn't get the juices fired up and enough of the troops marching into the voting booths in November. It would also mean they couldn't accuse Kerry of undermining the morale of the troops by setting a target for withdrawal or for not being willing to "stay the course." It would become evident that this whole pissing match over who's got the biggest set or whose is longest is just a bunch of garbage. Sorry, just don't buy that the guys at the top simply have a poor communication track record. One option is they believe what they say -- in which case they are idiots and, thank heavens, aren't really running things, but that's certainly no reason to keep them in office for four more years. Or they're running an incredible risk with a cynical charade -- conducting a highly iffy conflict out the backroom on terms totally inconsistent with campaign rhetoric so that they can win the election. If it's the latter and they do win, they (and probably us) will some day pay big-time one way or another. Things do have a nasty habit of coming back to bite you. Facts are facts, but perceptions are reality.