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Condi: State Does What We Can in Iraq
The papers today are full of the spat between the State and Defense Departments over civilian posts in Iraq. The Washington Post quotes a State official saying "Everybody just wants to pretend this never happened."
That might be the position of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice herself. In response to a question from Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) this morning at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, a weary Rice promised, "These are not positions the the State Department hasn't filled." As she explained, the unfilled posts aren't exclusively State Department posts; and those that are State posts, she promised -- without giving numbers -- have been filled. However, the State Department has been charged with filling other civilian posts in Iraq, such as agronomists and urban planners, "civilian positions I don't have." Finding people to fill these positions often requires -- you guessed it -- outside contractors, as the government doesn't have enough qualified experts in these fields to go to Iraq. And the money for all these jobs is, she promised, in the State Department's budget request.
A cynic might call Rice's answer six of one, half a dozen of the other. First, it's clear to many at State that State people are reluctant to go to Iraq. Second, it remains the case that even as the surge is moving forward, the civilian positions that are said to be crucial to its success are being temporarily filled by overtaxed U.S. troops. Rice testified that help is on the way, but we've heard that before -- all the way back to 2003, when the Coalition Provisional Authority and the military couldn't iron out a coherent working arrangement:
One morning, during breakfast at the battalion canteen, I asked Nagl about the Coalition Provisional Authority. He has yet to see a C.P.A. official at the base, he said. He pointed to an empty plastic chair at the table and asked: ''Where's the guy from C.P.A.? He should be sitting right there.''Given the weakness of the C.P.A., Nagl and other soldiers are effectively in charge not only of the military aspects of the counterinsurgency but also of reconstruction work and political development. Trained to kill tanks, the officers at Camp Manhattan spend much of their time meeting local sheiks and apportioning the thin funds at their disposal for rebuilding; the battalion maintains a list of school-improvement projects known as ''the Romper Room list.'' It is not unusual for Nagl and Colonel Swisher to go out in the morning on a ''cordon and search'' raid and return in the afternoon to their tactical operations center for a meeting with the second in command, Maj. David Indermuehle, about dispersing small grants to local health clinics.
Not to worry: it's all in the State Department budget request this time around.
Comments (12)
Richard L. Adlof wrote on February 8, 2007 11:20 AM:The Executive Branch's policy on Iraq is clear:
Ignore the hell outta it and hope that it NEVER goes away.
Pillage, punder and the price of Suadi oil . . . Oh my!
Cahoots wrote on February 8, 2007 11:30 AM:So "Doctor" Rice isn't a manager either. Unable to think deep or long, unable to "imagine" (or to believe that anyone else could), unable to remember, unable to convince, unable to manage, ... Just what is she doing in this administration?
Mrs Panstreppon wrote on February 8, 2007 11:39 AM:The DoD shut out the State Department in 2003 with the approval of the White House. Why should the State Department or anyone else want to get involved with Iraq now? The DoD created the mess, let the DoD fix it.
Hank Essay wrote on February 8, 2007 12:14 PM:Cahoots asks "...Just what is she doing in this administration?"
Your sentence before this very question explains it quite nicely....
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section9 wrote on February 8, 2007 12:21 PM:A lot of libs need to un***k themselves about this. Rice is actually correct about this. Gates is whining, and he should know better. DOD shut State out early on, and continued to do so all through Rice's tenure. Rummy had the troops on the ground and the Mojo.
So Condi will do what I think she must and hire the Blackwater Dudes to fill the gap.
That's just the way things are in wartime. Who had the mojo under Roosevelt? Stimson and Marshall. State really didn't come into its own until Marshall replaced the luckless hack "Jimmy" Burns, a Harry Truman crony. During Vietnam, it was all MacNamara, as Dean Rusk had to run a shadow organization during an increasingly unpopular war. Only in times of relative peace, say with Kissinger in the 1970's, does State rise to prominence.
"War is the most serious business of the state." Sun-Tzu wrote that 2500 years ago. There is a reason Rummy (with Cheney's help) has been the big dog in this town, and only now is Rice starting to emerge from his shadow. Liberals simply don't get this, and put Rice's inability to get things done in Iraq down to "incompetence". During wartime, State is a very junior department to War Department. It was that way in WWII. It's that way today.
It does not matter whether the Administration in power is Democratic or Republican. War has its own inertia. And during wartime, the power invested in Donald Rumsfeld's department allowed him, his towering genius, and his hubristic ego, to overpower first Powell, then Rice.
Only an election could send Rummy packing.
Bush wasn't helping Rice when he didn't force Rummy to return Condi's phone calls. Indeed, if he really wanted to help her out, he would have made her SECDEF instead of SECSTATE back at the end of '04. Missed opportunities. We'd probably be in better shape today in Iraq-Condi didn't have the ego problems that Rummy had, and would have seen the political dangers to Bush much earlier than Rummy, Feith, and the people around him.
Oh well, pissing into the wind and all that.
bakho wrote on February 8, 2007 12:23 PM:THE question for Condi is WTF are we refusing to talk to the Syrians and the Iranians? One good negotiation session would be worth more than 100 CPA staff.
The issue is lack of security. What kind of progress can be made when the security situation is so bad? Hey, somebody get some Head Start teachers over to the Watts riots. This flap should be laughed off the planet and focus on political settlement. Of course Condi, Cheney and Bush are adamantly opposed. Negotiation = Appeasement after all.
Noam Sane wrote on February 8, 2007 12:33 PM:Liberals simply don't get this, and put Rice's inability to get things done in Iraq down to "incompetence".
Sec. Rice has proven incompetent in many ways; most glaring, her failure to hold a single meeting of the security council following the "Bin Laden determined to strike US" memo.
And she's one of the main actors in the Bush administration, a tower of incompetence both domestically and abroad...and as we know,shit flows downhill (or out of the light fixtures, depending what building you're in).
She can't negotiate with Syria or Iran; that's not her fault, but it's not not her fault either. Part of her job is to go out, see how things are, and convince the President to do what must be done.
I really can't see defending this woman.
section9 wrote on February 8, 2007 1:06 PM:Why negotiate with Ahmadhi-Nejad when he's starting to have serious internal problems? Why not wait until Rafsanjani has much more power.
A/N has made his mark by pushing the nuclear issue while ignoring domestic issues. If you'd been reading the Iranian press, you'd have seen this. Factions loyal to A/N and the Revolutionary Guards Corps would love a conflict with the United States, to distract from the legions of internal problems that A/N has let fester.
Rice's policy is a wise one-beat back the Cheney Go To War crowd at home and give domestic Iranian politics the time it needs to play out and reduce the choices available to Ahmadhi-Nejad and the Triumphalists. Liberals, once again, are too wrapped up in their partisanship to get this game. Iran has overreached and has created enemies in the larger Arab world.
There will be a political settlement. Some smart Democrats, like Biden, get this. Most of you don't, however, which is damn disappointing, because up to now the sitting Iranian regime has been thoroughgoingly fascist and anti-Semitic.
It has uttered language that sounds as if it came out of the Fuhrerbunker. It has provoked an unneeded and unnecessary war in Lebanon to distract attention from its atomic program. And the evidence is being gathered by CENTCOM that the IRGC's Quds Force has decided to help out Al Qaeda's Iraq franchise with some early model SAM's. This is the evidence that Condi and Hayden insisted be held back until all the i's were dotted and t's crossed. Evidence we're not releasing until all the ducks are in a row-the MSM and the Democrats will do just about anything to protect the Iranians at this stage, and the Revolutionary Guards Corps Intelligence branch knows it, so the evidence has to be Cuban Missile Crisis grade stuff.
That's what's taken down four of our helicopters. For a better illustration of this, go to Bill Roggio's site. He's embedded there. Apparently, AQ got a STRELA shipment from the Revolutionary Guards.
Oh well, at least Gates doesn't have the towering ego issues that Rumsfeld had. They knew each other several years ago, so I suspect that Rice and Gates will find a way to work this out. But I suspect, only half-jokingly, that Rice will still have to hire Blackwater people.
Richard L. Adlof wrote on February 8, 2007 1:29 PM:If the piece's premise is correct . . . when Doc Rice was doing the Defense gig and helped put the squelch on Powell and the State office . . . She was setting her herself up for failure so she shouldn't be held responsible for State's failure to do its job now?
Golly, I still stand on my belief that the Executive Branch's policy on Iraq is summed up as:
"Ignore the hell outta it and hope
that it NEVER goes away."
The Department of Death . . . Wait that's not right . . . Hmmmm . . . The Department of Destruction . . . I must be living in a Condi sized brain-fart . . . Sigh . . . Oh Yeah! I got it . . . The Department of Defense has been honed into a dull, obtuse, blunt instrument designed to forward the just causes of pillage, plunder and the price of Saudi oil by the Administration. The DoD lacks the ability by training and design to fix this crap.
The Administration has ZERO (nada, zip) interest in bring Iraq towards any conclusion. Condi is diligently doing her job effectively and efficiently as it is defined by the Administration. She is pooching Iraq with both hands while maintaining the plausible deniably of total ineptitude. ONLY a change in the holders of the offices of President and Vice President will affect any positive change in the situation in Iraq as defined by the American people. The ‘war’ in Iraq allows the White House’s war on the American people to be won without debate - Okay, a little torture but no public debate.
Remember this is only about retaining Saudi control of oil. If you plug anything else into the question – NOTHING makes sense and the ‘farging bastages’ in the White House appear . . . Well . . . Like Bush’s public persona.
bjobotts wrote on February 8, 2007 3:35 PM:Every appointee Busch has placed in office has turned out to be incompetent, inept, and in some cases (Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzales)a downright embarrassment. Not only do they appear distracted but also uncooperative in trying to resolve the problems they've created. Rice acts like one who doesn't like her job, not very dedicated and unable to initiate the duties of her office without supervision every step of the way. She'll do exactly what she's told as quickly as possible so she can be done with it, but God don't ask her to go back over it it's too much of a hassel. She doesn't even know what positions are to be filled..."IT'S NOT MY JOB...is it?"
bunny99 wrote on February 8, 2007 3:54 PM:Just incredible. Does she really think they can still pull this off? If they would quit covering Bush's ass and come clean, maybe this country could at least contain the disaster in Iraq. Victory is not an option anymore, so who are they kidding? No, they'd all rather keep on bullshitting us, and acting like they're gettin' it done, when from what I've seen this week is THE WHEELS HAVE FINALLY COME OFF.
Jeremy wrote on February 8, 2007 4:32 PM:"Rice's policy is a wise one-beat back the Cheney Go To War crowd at home and give domestic Iranian politics the time it needs to play out and reduce the choices available to Ahmadhi-Nejad and the Triumphalists. Liberals, once again, are too wrapped up in their partisanship to get this game. Iran has overreached and has created enemies in the larger Arab world."
Unrealistically optimistic expectations about a foreign government's changing disposition...
Baseless optimism about an out-of-touch American administration's ability to overcome deep-seeded political strife and ideology...
Repeated condescension to those of opposing political stripe who disagree...
Claims contradicted by government publications and independent scholars...
Is it 2003 all over again? 1991? 1979?