How about that? Bush is thinking about creating a czar to lead the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and can't get anyone to even consider taking the job. Three retired flag officers shunned his offer.
The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the conduct of the activities in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.
At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position. . . .
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All three generals who declined the job have been to varying degrees administration insiders. Keane, a former Army vice chief of staff, was one of the primary proponents of sending more troops to Iraq and presented Bush with his plan for a major force increase during an Oval Office meeting in December. The president adopted the concept in January, although he did not dispatch as many troops as Keane proposed.
Why the idea of a Czar is being floated -
The highest-ranking White House official {currently} responsible exclusively for the wars is deputy national security adviser Meghan O'Sullivan, who reports to national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and does not have power to issue orders to agencies. O'Sullivan plans to step down soon, giving the White House the opportunity to rethink how it organizes the war effort.
Unlike O'Sullivan, the new czar would report directly to Bush and to Hadley and would have the title of assistant to the president, just as Hadley and the other highest-ranking White House officials have, the sources said. The new czar would also have "tasking authority," or the power to issue directions, over other agencies, they said.
Regarding O'Sullivan
"Meghan O'Sullivan, an aide to the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and more recently part of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, is in line to be senior director for Iraq at the National Security Council," Al Kamen wrote in the July 7, 2004, Washington Post.
"She had fallen out of favor with neo-cons awhile back because of her enthusiasm for sanctions as opposed to war against Iraq and because she had worked for insufficiently hard-line State Department policy chief Richard Haass. She's back in good graces now and, we hear, is a rising star," Kamen said.
She "came in with very little knowledge of Iraq when the war began," Diamond said, but by the time she left some Iraqis were calling her "the Gertrude Bell of the American mission" - a reference to the British civil administrator who helped create Iraq in the early 1920s.
Still, Diamond said, O'Sullivan's time at the White House has been "during a period where our policy has failed, and our situation in Iraq has, at best, stagnated and I think, by many objective assessments deteriorated disastrously. You can hardly call her tenure a success."
O'Sullivan isn't one of the neoconservatives who advocated the U.S. invasion. In fact, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld briefly removed her and others from an advance Pentagon team in March 2003. Yet O'Sullivan never wavered in public or private from optimism that the U.S. effort in Iraq would succeed. Source link
Meghan O’Sullivan was elevated to the lofty position of Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan. This makes O’Sullivan equal in rank to fellow NSC staffer Elliott Abrams, and arguably gives her more influence than many assistant secretaries, Joel Mowbray wrote November 30, 2005, for FrontPageMag.
In a telling comment, one of the retired generals approached by Bush said,
"The very fundamental issue is, they [the Bush administration] don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,' " he said.
I am not sure how Gen. Sheehan picked up the nuances he needed to reach his conclusion, but it is very telling that for him to even consider taking the job, a "way out of Iraq" would need to be on the table. The sorry implication is that in mulling over the offer, the general must have concluded that the Cheney cabal isn't even considering re-deployment of our troops as a viable option.
That Bush is now considering creating a more powerful office to oversee his military adventures in his GWOT certainly raises some serious questions.
Why now?
Public sentiment against the occupation of Iraq is at an all time high with a clear majority of Americans demanding the abatement of our military strategy. We want less military force and more deployment of effective diplomatic and political strategies. The 3 flag officers must sense this and recognize that a czar position would only enable the administration's continuing bull-headedness in pursing an ethereal military "victory." Only Bush seems to be unaware that we should be ending our military involvement, not setting it up for more long-term mis-management.
Why is the emphasis on military expertise?
In tandem with the quixotic goal of a military victory, seeking to fill the position with warriors (especially where it has been filled up to now by a civilian who seems to have been thinking outside of the box in formulating diplomatic and political strategy) shouts out a continuing stubbornness on the part of GWB to take heed of the diplomatic recommendations in the Iraq Study Report. Amazingly, Bush is not hearing the message being sent to him from the key Middle East stakeholders. The Saudi king has recently characterized our presence in Iraq as an "illegitimate occupation." At the recent middle east summit, discussion on a regional plan for peace took up most of the agenda. Maybe I am wrong, but these events sound like strong invitations to change the approach, and invaluable promises to join us in winning a lasting peace.
Isn't the leadership this new role will have already Bush's job?
Perhaps the most revealing innuendo in Bush's seeking to create this new position is this - Isn't running the adventures that he chose to embark on his responsibility? Is he trying to set up someone else to blame when his ill-conceived escapade into imperialistic nation-building inevitably fails? He is the bull in the China closet - putting someone else in will never absolve him of the responsibility. If he is such a great Decider, why does he need someone else to do it? Come to think of it, what exactly then has he been doing up to now that has gotten us into this swamp?
What will the scope of the job's authority cover?
Will the war czar have the authority to stop war-profiteering and seek restitution from those who have engaged in corruption? Will he have authority to investigate, remove, and punish Iraqis who have either stolen from the funds or set up fiefdoms contrary to peace and democracy? Will he have control over Blackwater, USA's private mercenaries in both countries? How much influence will the czar have over diplomatic overtones and what checks and balances will be in place vis a viz the State Department? Or will he just be the cabal's public relations pimp? The rejections of the offers leave me to believe that the flag officers lean towards the last scenario.
Having created the largest bureaucracy in the history of our country, the Department of Homeland Security, and run it to the ground into a massive black hole of incompetence, corruption, and waste, do we really need another layer of ineptitude under Bush? One more opportunity to say "Heck of a job General?" I sincerely hope that this is one executive job search that goes nowhere. Congress already has its plate full dealing with the messes this administration has created. It doesn't need to waste anymore time looking at a new gratuitous, unneeded, attempt to detract us from the real job that needs to be done - getting the F^&k out of Iraq.