Apparently there is no limit to the number of asinine decisions the Bush administration can make. A recent asinine decision is the appointment of a “War Czar” to oversee the debacle in Iraq, and the increasingly volatile war in Afghanistan.
Several weeks had passed with multiple generals refusing to take on the “War Czar” position before Lt. General Douglas Lute came along. The number of generals who refused is noteworthy, but more noteworthy is the fact that 5 and a half years after the invasion of Afghanistan and more than four years after the American invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration only now decides that they need to appoint a “czar” to coordinate both ventures. What have the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Council, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the CIA, the NSA, et al., been doing since 2001?
Does this administration mean to tell us that the Secretary of Defense or his National Security Adviser are not up to this role? Or that the generals on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan or even stateside don’t measure up? They don’t mean to tell us that, but that is the clear message a discerning citizen gets from this move. This administration is absolutely bereft of any ideas on how to extricate themselves from the holes they’ve dug themselves into. Instead of stopping the digging, they simply hand someone else the shovel.
On the day of Lt. Gen. Lute’s appointment, our president stated, “Nothing is more important than getting … American commanders in Afghanistan, and Ambassadors Crocker and Wood what they need, and Douglas Lute can make sure that happens quickly and reliably.” You mean all these years no one thought “getting American commanders what they need” was crucial?
Poor Lute. He’ll be lost in the morass of Bush bureaucracy and backbiting quicker than he can say, “I’m doing it to get that fourth star.” The “War Czar” position is one designed for ineffectiveness and blame catching.
On May 26, 2007, only 12 days after Lt. Gen. Lute’s appointment, The New York Times reported that the Bush administration was considering “concepts” for reducing troops in Iraq by as much as 50 percent in 2008. The “concepts” idea was leaked (anonymously and not for attribution) to reporters David Sanger and David Cloud. Once again The New York Times took the administration’s bait--hook, line & sinker. The administration wanted the paper to report the story it planted--not leaked--so the president, ever mighty, ever brave, could then roundly criticize it immediately thereafter. It was a brilliant propaganda move that would put a grin on Machiavelli’s face: The idea that the Bush administration was considering “concepts” for troop redeployment gives pause to the Democrats pushing for timelines for withdrawal, while Bush’s criticism of those very same administration-originated “concepts” shore up his dwindling right-wing warmonger base.
These “concepts” were being developed without the involvement of Gen. David Petraeus and Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the ground commanders in Iraq. It was strictly a Washington creation. Any mention of General Lute? Not a one. Any questions about why the Bush administration – which regularly rants against Washington dictating activities to the commanders on the ground in Iraq – is doing exactly that? Not a one.
Any mention of Lt. Gen. Lute’s take on this? No. The War Czar is already being marginalized. No one in their right mind would have taken on such a job, and no one in their right mind did. The War Czar will be as effective in his position as the Drug Czar was at ending drug use and trafficking. So why would Lt. Gen. Lute, a man who earlier was critical of the Bush escalation of troops now underway in Iraq, take this on? Maybe it’s the irresistible desire to add that fourth star to his epaulettes.
(Copyright 2007 by Joe Lake. Originally published in Pulse of the Twin Cities weekly, June 2007)
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