The WaPo had an interesting big front-page article today, in which a large team of their good reporters was writing about evident differences of opinion on the surge being expressed in intra-administration discussions by Gen. Petraeus and his own immediate superior, Centcom Chief Adm. William Fallon.
Fallon– oh, did I mention that he’s Petraeus’s superior officer?– is reported as favoring a much faster and deeper drawdown of US troops from Iraq than Petraeus has been willing to think of.
The reportorial team, led by Peter Baker, writes this:
- The polite discussion in the White House Situation Room a week ago [it involved these two guys plus that master strategist George W. Bush ~ HC] masked a sharper clash over the U.S. venture in Iraq, one that has been building since Fallon, chief of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees Middle East operations, sent a rear admiral to Baghdad this summer to gather information. Soon afterward, officials said, Fallon began developing plans to redefine the U.S. mission and radically draw down troops.
One of those plans, according to a Centcom officer, involved slashing U.S. combat forces in Iraq by three-quarters by 2010. In an interview, Fallon disputed that description but declined to offer details. Nonetheless, his efforts offended Petraeus’s team, which saw them as unwelcome intrusion on their own long-term planning. The profoundly different views of the U.S. role in Iraq only exacerbated the schism between the two men.
“Bad relations?” said a senior civilian official with a laugh. “That’s the understatement of the century. . . . If you think Armageddon was a riot, that’s one way of looking at it.”
Actually, whether the two generals get along well or not is not the central issue. The central issue is surely what on earth has happened to the integrity of the chain of military command?
The answer is, of course, George W. Bush. He has reached down deep inside Centcom, going past Adm. Fallon to establish a direct relationship with Petraeus and having Petraeus report directly to him and to Congress.
Of course, in terms of having a rational military/strategic decisionmaking process, this is a disaster.
Peter Baker and Co. wrote this about Fallon’s position:
- Fallon, who took command of Centcom in March, worried that Iraq was undermining the military’s ability to confront other threats, such as Iran. “When he took over, the reality hit him that he had to deal with Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and a whole bunch of other stuff besides Iraq,” said a top military officer.
That, of course, is the important part of the whole story here. The prolonged and large-scale deployment in Iraq is actively harming Centcom’s ability to “deal with” these other areas. Indeed, it is harming the ability of the Army and Marines to do any sensible long-range force-planning at all… Fallon has responsibility for the whole of Centcom’s area of operations, whereas Petraeus has only to worry about Iraq (and about becoming Tony Blair’s replacement as Presidential Lapdog-in-Chief.)
The WaPo article also had this to say about Fallon:
- Fallon was also derisive of Iraqi leaders’ intentions and competence, and dubious about the surge. “He’s been saying from Day One, ‘This isn’t working,’ ” said a senior administration official. And Fallon signaled his departure from Bush by ordering subordinates to avoid the term “long war” — a phrase the president used to describe the fight against terrorism.
Interesting.
I think that, to do their jobs properly, the Senate and House Armed Services Committees– and the US voters as a whole!– now need to hear from Adm. Fallon directly, and not just from his underling who has already, apparently, been suborned by the President.
It is bad enough that we have this huge, extremely lethal US military apparatus barging around the world taking unilateral offensive actions whenever and wherever the POTUS pleases. But how much more scary of a prospect is it if we cannot even be assured that that military has a single and recognizable chain of command?
Who does Gen. Petraeus report to? We need to know. We also need to hear, and give appropriate weight to, the views of the Centcom head.
Might you have any confirmation of this? Apparently, news agencies from the Middle East are reporting Allawi mediating between US forces and Saddam’s Ba’ath, hence the “progress” in Al Anbar (Might the US have capitulated?). As’ad AbuKhalil also reports hearing that the Saudi’s may have bought off some Sunni tribes on behalf of Bush. Interesting.
Also stunning is this account of Ryan Crocker’s whopper of a chain-of-command question to Rice about Cheney:
———————-
Meanwhile, the Maliki government pressed the Americans to sit down with Iranian officials in hopes of stopping Tehran from funding and arming Shiite militias. Bush had rejected proposals by the Iraq Study Group and others to talk with Iran, but Rice decided it was time.
When Rice told Crocker to get ready for talks with Iran, he asked her the “blindingly obvious” question of whether Vice President Cheney would allow it, a U.S. official said. Rice, according to the official, told Crocker that it “wasn’t your lane,” adding, “I’ll work it back here. That’s not your problem.”
Rice overcame resistance from Cheney for talks with both Syria and Iran, and Crocker met an Iranian envoy in Baghdad. In the end, the talks led nowhere.
———————
Of course, the question unasked is just why the talks led nowhere…. Could it have been that they were directly undercut by Cheney’s hardline allies re. Iran? (soon thereafter, as you’ll recall, Michael R. Gordon was unleashed at the NYTimes, etc.)
Many Iraqis US promoted guys refusing any idea of international conferences to discussing Iraq problems, this on going position by Al-Maliki, Hoshyar Zebari the current Minister of Foreign Affairs and Jalal Talabani all insisted no international involvement!!
Although the strange thing here same officials asking for neighbouring country talk and indorsing this to discus and help Iraq security issue most common neighbours are Syria and Iran!! As if Iraq has just two neighbours?
Strangely enough, many times I was bullied by few here when mentioning Iran mangling inside Iraq, now we see same those few indorsing the talk with Iran about Iraq!! But they are refusing admitting Iranian’s figures inside Iraq and how far that worsens Iraq case.
Hope they come with real answers and with honesty and open their hearts here without hiding themselves by bulling me more.
How many years to replace these 14,000 policemen and others how fired by Iraqi Interior Ministry?
http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USCOL944901._CH_.2400
What a shock, if these guys took five years to trained and disciplined by US and other now turned out they are corrupt?
Let go back to other guys “Yesterday’s Insurgents” and hire them again and be our new friends!!
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070909/17iraq.b_print.htm
This is the surge and this outcome off it.
In my view it’s not the chain of command that’s at risk, but the survival of the US military itself. There are two conflicting problems.
The first is that morale is down, recruitment non-existent, the officer corps fleeing, the physical hardware – tanks, HumV’s, copters, guns, etc., all worn out & destroyed.
The second is the overall economy the Pentagon has to work with. If the real estate bubble takes down the stock markets, if the value of the dollar collapses, if, for whatever reason, China & Japan can no longer soak up excess US currency, in other words, if we blast ourselves back to the Great Depression, where will the money come from to rebuild the military that Clinton handed off to G.W. Bush in 2001?
Will we sacrifice Social Security? Will we scrap Medicare? Will we let the highways fall apart? Where will the money come from?
We had the first problem in 1975, after the war in Vietnam ended. But then we still had a strong, robust economy to rebuild the military. Now we don’t.
Which brings up another point, one that makes me angry. Since 1945, we’ve given the Pentagon every cent it’s asked for – often a lot more. We sacrificed health care, we sacrificed education, we sacrificed good jobs & good wages because it was so very important we were armed to the teeth.
And for what? What? So a fool could throw it all away in Mesopotamia? Is that what we sacrificed for? Did we not have real enemies? Does the military not have a real job to protect us?
Having destroyed our Army & Marines, are we now militarily at risk? Or were we ever at risk? Is the US military essential to US existence, or has it become a mere plaything for an overemployed drunk? If we can’t afford to rebuild it, we’re going to have to answer that question.
Admiral Fallon has seen the results of sowing the Dragon’s Teeth.
First the people who were maintaining order in Somalia were removed. Now another of Ethiopia’s neighbour’s is threatened with attack.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D094F239-4B99-487D-85A5-024F8BA0D4A8.htm
Where is he going to get the troops? We havent any to spare for an adventure in Africa.
If you play Risk at all you know what fun it is to watch one of your opponents overextend himself. You roll him up by defeating him piecemeal.
Dave of Maryland,
throw it all away in Mesopotamia?
Sorry Dave its not thrown into Mesopotamia, in fact your country destroying Mesopotamia by your Army & Marines, the fact is all your and other US citizens money went to those pockets who sold this war from those elites payout to those ThinkTanks, and impended Journalist to a military personal and offcourse the big junk is to US military suppliers. so Mesopotamia land destroyed by all those who involved in this war.