Posted by: McQ on Thursday, November 09, 2006 David Ignatius provides us with a peek into the Rumsfeld Defense Department which is, at least to me, very enlightening: Senior military officers referred to it as "the 7,000-mile screwdriver.'' That was their way of describing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's penchant for micromanaging aspects of the Iraq War that interested him. And it's one reason why the military will be happy today that Rumsfeld is leaving — even happier, maybe, than Democrats, who have claimed an early scalp for their election victory.Yesterday I reported the claim that Rumsfeld was a micro-manager. Now we see it was prevalent enough of a problem to have warrented a name, a derisive one at that. One of the things the military teaches its officers is to delegate. Part of your job is to train your junior officers to be whatever rank you are and to then give them the opportunity to do what is necessary to make that a reality. Mission type orders. You give them a mission and the means to accomplish the mission and then you let them decide how to accomplish the mission. Your job is to provide guidance and support where necessary. But for the most part you don't get in their way, and you certainly don't go around them and give orders to their subordinates. I can imagine, given he was retiring from commander of NATO, that Gen. Jones knew the problem existed and, when he confirmed it, perfectly understand why he decided he couldn't live with the arrangement. Ignatius goes on and talks about the good and bad aspects of Donald Rumsfeld and what that meant in terms of how the war in Iraq was fought and how, additionally, it was probably a good thing he's leaving. Just what he reported above is reason enough in my book. That's no way to "run an Army". Ignatius then drops a little surprise. It appears that the White House was contemplating running Rummy off earlier and that was shelved when we had the infamous "general's revolt" involving retired ex-generals hitting the op-ed pages denouncing him: Oddly enough, it was the generals who helped keep Rumsfeld in his job. The White House had decided last spring that it was time to make a change at the Pentagon, and officials were steeling themselves to break the news to Rumsfeld when the "generals' revolt'' erupted on newspaper op-ed pages, with former officers lining up to denounce their ex-boss. The White House decided it couldn't appear to bow to pressure and retreated.Timing is everything and I can't help but wonder if Republicans who read this today won't wonder if Tueday may have seen a little different outcome if Rumsfeld had "resigned" a few months prior rather than the day after. Ignatius sees Gates as a form of capitulation by Bush: Gates will bring something else to the table, and it may be a crucial factor in the months ahead. He came back into the Bush administration's spotlight because of his work as a member of the Iraq Study Group, headed by Bush 41 Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton. Gates embodies the group's effort to find a bipartisan policy for Iraq. In that sense, he will go to the Pentagon with an invisible mission statement that can be summed up in two words: "Exit Strategy.'' He won't want to leave Iraq quickly or dangerously, but unlike Rumsfeld, he won't fight the problem.So the question then, if we accept the premise that this means Bush is trying to find a way out of Iraq, how will this be done? Further, again given the premise, will he try to avoid this in a way in which Democrats can take credit? I think at this time the answers are "I don't know" and "yes." We'll see how this all shakes out, but look, as Ignatius says, for some real changes in Iraq. |
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