One Thing After Another

The Debacle

Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott write for McClatchy Newspapers: "The war in Iraq has become 'a major debacle' and the outcome 'is in doubt' despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon's premier military educational institute.

"The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush's projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions.

The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations. . . .

"'Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle,' says the report's opening line. . . .

"The report said that the United States has suffered serious political costs, with its standing in the world seriously diminished. Moreover, operations in Iraq have diverted 'manpower, materiel and the attention of decision-makers' from 'all other efforts in the war on terror' and severely strained the U.S. armed forces.

"'Compounding all of these problems, our efforts there (in Iraq) were designed to enhance U.S. national security, but they have become, at least temporarily, an incubator for terrorism and have emboldened Iran to expand its influence throughout the Middle East,' the report continued."

A few more choice excerpts from the report: "There is no understanding what happened in Iraq without understanding the players, their philosophies, and their associations. The tight link between Vice President Cheney and [former defense secretary Donald] Rumsfeld was a key association and one peculiar to this administration. One expert talked about the dominance of the Cheney-Rumsfeld viewpoint as a 'thumb on the scales' of the national security decisionmaking process.

"Secretary Rumsfeld's penchant for dealing one-on-one with the combatant commanders and diving into the details of war plans and unit deployments was also unprecedented in the postwar era. This is not to say that President Bush was manipulated by his powerful subordinates. He was very much in command and has demonstrated that he is fully capable of making decisions that run counter to the recommendations of his closest advisors. Still, in this case, the power wielded by Rumsfeld and Cheney was both considerable and unique. . . .

"One key observer noted that many issues were later decided in private by the President and Vice President -- a normal occurrence, but one that complicates our ability to account for decisions. Private talks between Presidents and Vice Presidents are not unusual, but such a close relationship between the two elected officials has seldom been combined with an unprecedentedly high level of Vice Presidential activism in the national security policy development process."

Meanwhile, in Pakistan . . .

Eric Schmitt writes in the New York Times: "The Bush administration has failed to develop a governmentwide plan to combat terrorism in Pakistan's unruly tribal areas, even though top American officials concede that Al Qaeda has regenerated its ability to attack the United States and has established havens in that border region, government auditors said Thursday.

"In a searing report, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, sharply criticized the administration for relying too heavily on Pakistan's military to achieve American counterterrorism goals, while paying only token attention to economic development and improving governance. . . .

"In a rare acknowledgment, senior officials at the United States Embassy in Islamabad told the government auditors that they had received no strategic guidance from Washington on designing, carrying out, financing and monitoring a coordinated American strategy, the report said."