Who's in control of this crazy thing - The lunacy of a "war czar"

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country."

President George W. Bush spoke those words under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished" on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003. The key words in that statement are "securing" and "reconstructing" — because those two objectives fall into two very different departments. The "securing" was to be done by Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department and the "reconstructing" was the job of Colin Powell's State Department. The assumption was the two departments, and the two men, would find a way to work together. But because Rumsfeld wanted total control of Iraq (at one point he said to the President that he would be 100 percent accountable if he had 100 percent responsibility), that's not how it played out.

In Powell's defense, there was nothing more he could have done. He's a soldier and he's spent most of his adult life developing a respect for the chain of command. As such, he took his orders from the Commander in Chief. So even though he is the author of the "Powell Doctrine of Overwhelming Force," he went along with a paltry invasion force of only about 120,000 soldiers — with no increase in troop levels for the reconstruction phase. As a diplomat, he waited until after the general election in December of 2005 so he could claim that the Iraqis had elected a government. But Iraq was still the exclusive domain of Rumsfeld's Pentagon.

Enter National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice who, when offered Powell's old job told the President, "I think maybe you need new people." She was correct. But, as with most "loyal Bushies," she did what the President wanted her to do, not what she thought was right. She took the job, knowing that the State Department had been marginalized to the point where the President told Saudi Prince Bandar about plans to invade Iraq before he told Colin Powell. Her most valuable quality was that she already knew her place in the administration's pecking order when it came to Iraq policy: First the President, then the Vice President (very much a hawk), then the Secretary of Defense (very much a war monger), then her. In the past, she had tried to talk to Secretary Rumsfeld about war planning or troop deployments and was told that the chain of command did not include the National Security Advisor. Needless to say, she was inconsequential in Rumsfeld's universe and she knew once Cheney and Rumsfeld were in agreement on something, the President always goes along.

So when I read that current National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley was looking to create and fill the position of "war czar" (an administrator to oversee military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan), I was blown away. The official plan is to create a position with "tasking authority" (the ability to give orders) and "clearly assigned responsibility, deadlines, performance metrics (as appropriate), and a system of accountability to ensure progress." Is the President finally fed up with the pace of progress in Iraq and looking to create a Cabinet-level position to get it jump-started? No. Did the President decide that the stagnation of the Iraqi government was unacceptable and that a new face on the ground in Iraq is needed to motivate them? No. So what happened?

Apparently, deputy National Security Advisor Meghan O'Sullivan (who reports to Hadley), the highest-ranking White House official whose full-time job revolves around operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, is resigning. So a low-level White House staffer is quitting and because of that, I'm supposed to believe the administration has come up with a plan to finally get the departments of Defense and State on the same page after four years? I was born at night, but it wasn't last night.

Someone should tell Hadley that the job of overseeing and managing the deployment of the United States military already exists: He’s called the Commander in Chief. And the job of refereeing disputes between cabinet secretaries and their departments already exists: He’s called the President. And that job is already filled. I completely understand his desire to distance himself from his own failed Iraq policy, but as our first "CEO President," it's time for George W. Bush to take responsibility for America's falling "stock price". As one person who had been offered the job, retired four-star General John Sheehan said, "The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going." Not only do they now know where they're going, this idea of creating a "war czar" shows that they don't even know who's driving.