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Cabal Unplugged
By now you've probably heard about the lacerating speech about Bush's foreign policy "cabal" delivered by former Colin Powell deputy Col. Lawrence Wilkerson. Here now is the full transcript, including Q&A. The money shot:
But the case that I saw for four-plus years was a case that I have never seen in my studies of aberrations, bastardizations, perturbations, changes to the national security decision-making process. What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made. And then when the bureaucracy was presented with the decision to carry them out, it was presented in a such a disjointed, incredible way that the bureaucracy often didn't know what it was doing as it moved to carry them out.
But there's much more of interest in the transcript: On detainee abuse, presidential secrecy, depletion of the Army, Executive Branch concentration of power, bureaucratic infighting, how the State Dept. and even the dreaded Europeans really did believe Saddam had WMDs.... And warming my nostalgic heart, he even gets off a two-paragraph rip on the "military industrial complex." Whole thing here; thanks to Rob McMillin for the link.
Ron Hardin|10.21.05 @ 3:39PM|#
The next cabal elections are 2008. Can the bureaucrats survive? Maybe it will be another cabal.
|10.21.05 @ 3:44PM|#
This is an excelent view into the liberal mind at State and at
the CIA. These bureaucrats believe that the elected president and
his appointed cabinet should not be running foreign policy. This
liberal believes he and his unelected fellow travels should be
running foreign policy.
This is good news. It appears that all this weeping and nashing of
teeth means Bush is cleaning house rather successfully. Getting
ride of disgruntled partisan leftists for people who will promote
foreign policy the president wants instead of what a bunch of
left-wingers want.
The State Department and the CIA need a good house cleaning like
this. Only Bushophobs will not like this.
R C Dean|10.21.05 @ 3:49PM|#
What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the
United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of Defense, Donald
Rumsfeld on critical issues that made decisions that the
bureaucracy did not know were being made.
My God! The people who are supposed to be in charge are making
decisions without clearing them with their underlings first! Oh,
the humanity!
|10.21.05 @ 3:51PM|#
There was more than one money shot. It was like reading the
scipt of a buakake film. Not that I would do that kind of thing.
Never.
We had a discussion in policy planning about actually mounting
an operation to take the oilfields in the Middle East,
internationalize them, put them under some sort of U.N. trusteeship
and administer the revenues and the oil accordingly.
|10.21.05 @ 3:56PM|#
If the ones making the decisions are competent and honest, then there's no problem.
|10.21.05 @ 3:58PM|#
He criticized the president.
Yeah, but we don't need to pay any attention.
Why not?
He's a liberal leftist.
How do you know he's a liberal leftist?
He criticized the president.
Thanks for the excellent view into your mind, RA.
|10.21.05 @ 4:01PM|#
RC, maybe you missed the next line, that explains what he's
talking about?
"And then when the bureaucracy was presented with the decision to
carry them out, it was presented in a such a disjointed, incredible
way that the bureaucracy often didn't know what it was doing as it
moved to carry them out."
Oops, it's about the career people agreeing that they're supposed
to get their marching orders from "the people who are supposed to
be in charge," and being troubled by the incompetance and delusions
of those people.
Damn, you had such a beautiful narrative built up there.
|10.21.05 @ 4:05PM|#
And a serious question: in what way was it "liberal" or "leftist" for the State Dept. to draw up a comprehensive post-war plan and how was it "conservative" to throw that plan into the waste basket?
|10.21.05 @ 4:07PM|#
I should have said, "...and how was it 'conservative' or 'anti-liberal' for the ones in charge to throw that plan into the waste basket?"
|10.21.05 @ 4:22PM|#
RC, maybe you missed the next line, that explains what he's
talking about?
RCDean has too much invested in BushWar to back away from those
clowns now. Shrub could replace Cheney with Saddam as VP and it
would be OK by him.
|10.21.05 @ 4:25PM|#
I can't help but think that if it weren't a cabal making
decisions, we would have argument that there is no
accountability.
What we have is a president who has arranged an administration that
is hands on at the top, and he is loyal to his people even in the
face of incompetence. He doesn't hold them accountable and he is
the only one who can fire them.
If we let the bureaucrats run with policy, I wonder if Wilkerson
would be comfortable with the buck stopping there.
I'm not suggesting that top down is better, but it seems that the
argument about process and bureaucracy is an attempt to have it
both ways - bureaucrats should be prime movers in decision making
while public faces should take the heat.
|10.21.05 @ 4:32PM|#
This got brought up in my ISP's newsgroups as well. Part of the
problem is that some of the articles about the speech are very
slanted, making it sound like Cheney et al. "hijacked" foreign
policy away from the bureaucracy, and I reacted like RC Dean did:
"How do elected officials 'hijack' policy decision-making away from
an unelected bureaucracy?" But the real point of the speech was
that the managerial and operational process is very poor: even if
you can make decisions unilaterally, it's a good idea to
consult with your direct reports, let them know what's going on,
and make them feel like they have some input into the process. So I
agree with joe that far, although I don't know where he gets
"incompetence and delusions" from, because Wilkerson didn't say
anything like that.
I liked this bit -
And of course there are other names in there: Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, whom most of you probably know Tommy Franks said was the stupidest blankety, blank man in the world. He was. Let me testify to that. He was. Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man.
I'm not sure what to think about Wilkerson. On the one hand, I like
a guy who doesn't talk like a politician. On the other hand, he
doesn't seem to know when to shut up, and I bet he makes a lot of
enemies.
|10.21.05 @ 4:37PM|#
"it's a good idea to consult with your direct reports, let them
know what's going on, and make them feel like they have some input
into the process"
Or maybe even actually make sure they have some input into the
process, because there are probably a lot of things that someone
who's spent his life working in a certain field knows about that
subject, that someone with leadership skills, high level contacts,
and partisan credentials does not.
James Anderson Merritt|10.21.05 @ 4:42PM|#
Having worked in some pseudo-bureaucracies and very
bureaucratized corporations, I don't read this fellow's complaints
as leftist or indicative of an elitist view at all. His words say
to me, the guys at the top didn't bother to consult the people who
would have to implement policies, to get their take on feasibility
and advisability, thus depriving the workers of, among other
things, preparation that would be valuable at the time the decision
was finally announced and the plan needed to be executed. In other
words, the people responsible for making things happen couldn't
"hit the ground running." Absent that preparation, clear
articulation of the plan is absolutely essential to quick and
competent execution, but the complaint is that the guys at the top
fumbled that move, too. In other words, after failing to prepare
their people, they went on to confuse them.
I've seen that pattern repeated many times in the past in private
industry, and have heard similar stories from my buddies who work
in government and the military. Haven't you?
I am constantly reminded, by friends of mine who aren't as
antagonistic toward government as me and my fellow libertarians,
that government is nothing more than a group of fallible people, no
more or less monstrous or worthy than any other human organization
or enterprise. That being the case, government leaders cannot
assume that their employees will automatically be ready to execute
with any competency, decisions that were made in secret and
communicated poorly, any more than military or business leaders can
expect the same thing.
Col. Wilkerson seems only to be making that well-established point
one more time. And yet there are still some who completely fail to
take that point. They're human too, I guess. :-)
R C Dean|10.21.05 @ 4:51PM|#
Well, he sort of presents the poor presentation of the decision
as a whole separate complaint.
I tend to find that people easily grasp how to carry out ideas they
agree with, and never quite get a handle on how to carry out ideas
they don't agree with, so as a veteran bureaucrat I take even that
complaint with a grain of salt.
Still, I'm not saying that the Bushies are masters of all they do.
I just think its funny that anyone cares about this guy complaining
that the bosses making different decisions than he and his buddies
would make. Show me a lunchroom where that isn't happening.
I will admit, though that the bureaucrats' plan to take over the
oil fields and give them to the UN is obviously superior. I mean,
only somebody in Hallisatan's pocket would reject that one.
|10.21.05 @ 4:59PM|#
Now, Douglas, I think our Commander-in-Chief has demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that "smart" (as in "intelligent," that is) has nothing to do with being president. Of course, I don't know if a retarded person could be president, we'll have to see who gets nominated in '08.
|10.21.05 @ 5:01PM|#
James Anderson Merritt,
The two most common things in universe are hydrogen and
bureaucracy.
|10.21.05 @ 5:10PM|#
I find it interesting that in one area, Wilkerson complains
about how the Dept. of Homeland Security was cobbled together to
make one big dysfunctional government family, and then later on he
advocates combining the Depts. of State and Defense into one
mega-agency. I'm not saying he's wrong to advocate that, but it
does seem rather inconsistent. After all, wasn't DHS created in
order to promote information sharing--which Wilkerson claims is a
real problem?
BTW, in a new Dept. of State and Defense (Foreign Security?), I can
see huge bureaucratic shitstorms arising between the military and
diplomatic folks, who come from very different cultures.
|10.21.05 @ 5:35PM|#
John Quincy Adams said we�re the friends of liberty
everywhere and the custodians only of our own.
Smart man, that J.Q. Adams...
Wilkerson discounts this statement almost without comment, when if
fact it goes to the heart of what ails our foreign policy.
|10.21.05 @ 6:10PM|#
I find his discussion of WMDs (search for "weapons") very
interesting.
Saddam Hussein really cared about deterring the Persians - the
Iranians - and his own people. He didn't give a hang about us
except on occasion. And so he had to convince those audiences that
he still was a powerful man. So who better to do that through than
the INC, Ahmad Chalabi and his boys, and by spoofing our eyes in
the sky and our little HUMINT, and the Brits and the French and the
Germans, too. That's all I can figure.
The consensus of the intelligence community was overwhelming. I
can still hear George Tenet telling me, and telling my boss in the
bowels of the CIA, that the information we were delivering - which
we had called considerably - we had called it very much - we had
thrown whole reams of paper out that the White House had created.
But George was convinced, John McLaughlin was convinced that what
we were presented was accurate. And contrary to what you were
hearing in the papers and other places, one of the best
relationships we had in fighting terrorists and in intelligence in
general was with guess who? The French. In fact, it was probably
the best. And they were right there with us.
In fact, I'll just cite one more thing. The French came in in
the middle of my deliberations at the CIA and said, we have just
spun aluminum tubes, and by god, we did it to this RPM, et cetera,
et cetera, and it was all, you know, proof positive that the
aluminum tubes were not for mortar casings or artillery casings,
they were for centrifuges. Otherwise, why would you have such
exquisite instruments? We were wrong. We were wrong.
|10.21.05 @ 6:14PM|#
Irrelevant, but this story always bugs me:
Talk about secrecy - Harry Truman, when he took over in April
of 1945, didn't even know about the atomic bomb. He had had hints
because he'd written -- as chairman of the investigating committee
in the Senate, he'd written to Stimson, and he had said, "I've
heard about this land-buying out in Washington; tremendous numbers
of acres are being bought. What's going on?" And Stimson had said,
"Please, Mr. Senator, it''s too big for you" - essentially, and
Truman had backed off - to give you a sense of the times and the
seriousness of what was happening.
Actually, Truman supposedly knew of the bomb before
assuming the presidency. IIRC, he actually made an offhand mention
to a bomb of incredible power being developed in a meeting. But
I'll have to see if I can dig up that reference from the ginormous
bio of the guy I have.
M1EK|10.21.05 @ 6:24PM|#
KERRY WOULD HAVE BEEN WORSE! Because, uh, he would have had a
cabal too. Except EXCEPT! It would have been worse! Like with Jane
Fonda and Michael Moore!
HAW HAW! MUCH WORSE!
|10.21.05 @ 6:26PM|#
Eric the .5b,
I've often wonder just how secret the Manhatten Project was, given
that over a dozen places in the U.S. housed facilities related to
the project and the number of people involved.
|10.21.05 @ 6:35PM|#
Of course Kerry would have better. He told us that he would have done everything the same, but, you know, better.
|10.21.05 @ 7:35PM|#
M1EK,
I love your form of argument. Can I use that? Apparently, if you
repeat "Kerry would be worse!" in a shrill sarcastic tone, that
must mean that he wouldn't have! You're brilliant!
|10.21.05 @ 7:38PM|#
These bureaucrats believe that the elected president and his
appointed cabinet should not be running foreign policy
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought State was still part of the
cabinet, and is charged with running foreign policy.*
As far as I can tell, Powell was "appointed", and by my definition,
Wilkerson
doesn't fit the State Dept. Arabist career bureaucrat mold.
* I'm aware of the change in the Sec. of State's role, or lack of,
since Kissinger.
|10.21.05 @ 10:45PM|#
Eric-
I have no idea what Truman knew, but according to Richard Feynman
(one of the scientists on the project), a lot of people on the
project (including many of the people that he supervised) didn't
even know what they were working on.
His team became much more productive after he was allowed to
explain to them what they were actually working on. They worked
better when they understood what they were doing. Most of them were
processing numerical calculations on mechanical calculators.
Strictly speaking, they didn't need to know what they were doing.
The scientists could give them numbers and tell them how to crunch
the numbers without explaining the context.
But he was supervising very clever, mathematically inclined young
guys who probably would have been studying technical subjects in
college if the war hadn't intervened. As soon as he explained the
problem at hand and the nature of the algorithm they started
figuring out better ways to do things. They were also more
enthusiastic workers.
|10.22.05 @ 1:42AM|#
It was like reading the scipt of a buakake film.
That has to be the most unwholesome idea I've read in at least half
a decade. Bravo.
|10.22.05 @ 2:33AM|#
Anyone who discounts the cost involved in disclosing strategy to bureaucrats who will oppose said strategy doesn't understand the first thing about Washington D.C..
Warren|10.22.05 @ 9:26AM|#
thoreau,
As one who worships at the altar of Feynman, it's always a pleasure
to see him referenced. Better than the story about his high-school
academy students, is the one about the uranium refinement at Oak
Ridge TN. The army builds this huge facility to enrich uranium via
diffusion and only like three guys know what's what. So Los Alamos
sends young Richard Feynman to look the place over and see if all
was copacetic. He goes there and finds several problems. He asks,
"Is this the way you're going to handle the refined uranium?"
"Yeah, sure. Why not" is the reply. "Won't it explode?" says dick.
"Wha huh EXPLODE!?" (Why did you say that? Now they're all upset.)
This leads Feynman to confront army security and say, "Los Alamos
can not take responsibility for the safety of the Oak Ridge
facility unless the management at Oak Ridge are fully informed as
to its nature and purpose". The army relents and the Oak Ridge
people redesign the place. This leads to a great story about how to
tell the difference between a valve and a window but I'll leave
that for another day.
|10.22.05 @ 11:45AM|#
"Anyone who discounts the cost involved in disclosing strategy
to bureaucrats who will oppose said strategy doesn't understand the
first thing about Washington D.C."
Anyone who discounts the problems of keeping the experts in the
dark, and putting ideologically-reliable hacks in positions that
require expertise...well, between the phoney WMD intelligence, the
failure of the Iraq post-war, and the Katrina response, I don't
think I have to explain the downside here.
|10.22.05 @ 12:24PM|#
joe, "expertise" is what led into the conflict with the Middle
East, from the Iran hostage crisis, to Lebanon, to the 1st WTC
attack, to Somalia, to Khobar Towers, to the embassy bombings, to
the U.S.S. Cole, to the 2nd WTC attack, and the attack on the
Pentagon. Listening to the "experts" criticize the hacks that Bush
appointed is like listening to a Kansas City Royal executive
criticize a Tampa Bay Devil Ray executive for failing to field a
winning team.
A fundamental fact of Washington D.C. is that if one wishes to
pursue a policy that is contrary to the general consensus of the
bureaucracy that will carry out the policy, one has to cut the
bureaucracy out of the loop, because if one does not, the
bureaucracy will undermine the policy. Every. Single. Time.
Therefore , Joe, if you wish to advocate adherance to the status
quo in every single instance, go ahead and make a blanket
denunciation of cutting entrenched bureaucrats out of the loop. On
the other hand, one can recognize that criticism of a policy or
it's implementation is certainly useful, if such criticism is well
reasoned, but to criticize the implementation of a policy because a
bureaucracy which was opposed to the policy was kept in the dark,
well, that is simply a mindless devotion to reactionary
thought.
|10.22.05 @ 7:00PM|#
"expertise" is what led into the conflict with the Middle
East,
Here I was thinking it was outside forces attempting to topple
anything that looked even remotely hostile while supporting all
manner of incredible atrocities from governments that were
supportive between the years 1950 to 1980 that brought that about.
Doesn't take much "expertise" to go into a place and break shit up,
which is why things are so bad right now that the experts can't
think of anything to help matters that won't wind up being agony
for everyone involved, ourselves included.
|10.22.05 @ 9:43PM|#
Will,
I understand bureacratic resistance. People who are able to predict
the outcome of decisions tend not to like it when those who cannot
point the car at a cliff and stomp on the gas.
The idea that the best way to overcome it is to shut out the people
who know what their talking about is dead wrong, and built on the
twin falsehoods that such inertia is primarily 1) ideological and
2) based on satisfaction with the status quo. Were you to have an
understanding of the civil service that was based on something
broader than reading the words of those who invoke it in their
political speeches, you'd realize that every intern has a head full
of changes they'd just love to tell you about, and which are so
dry, technical, and non-ideological that politicians' eyes glaze
over when they find themselves having to listen to them.
If the administration didn't like the outlook of the bureacrats in
place, they should have found new bureaucrats. Lord knows they come
in all flavors in Washington. By deciding to cut the people who
know what they're talking about out of the loop altogether, they
ended with a mutual admiration society telling each other how smart
they are to go with their guts.
Hence, the Iraqi people will take Ahmed Chalabi to their bosoom
(and we don't need the bureaucrats at State to tell us
different).
|10.23.05 @ 9:32PM|#
Would the writers at Reason stop saying "money shot?" to refer to anything except to that to which it refers? I don't like getting a mental image of nut gushing out a man's penis in slow motion every other fricking day (which is about how often the term is used).
|10.24.05 @ 10:46AM|#
Oh, yes, Joe, the consensus within bureaucracies is always
correct, and really, it is such realistic advice to simply replace
the bureacucrats within the space of a couple of years, which, in
reality, is about how much time a President has to make fundamental
change. Also, the ideas of interns always bubble to the top of
hierarchies.
I agree that differing viewpoints needs to be part of the mix. It
does not follow that those viewpoints need to include people who
have worked within an enttenched bureacracy.
Shem, you apparently have come to the astounding conclusion that
the so-called "experts" had no input regarding policy from 1950 to
1980.
|10.24.05 @ 10:54AM|#
By the way, Joe, if one is going to ridicule those outside the bureaucracy for their incorrect assessments, one should also target for ridicule the litany of incorrect assessments made by bureaucrats over the past quarter century. Of course, if one's highest priority is the defense of the bureaucracy, one may not do so.
gaius marius|10.24.05 @ 4:54PM|#
The people who are supposed to be in charge are making
decisions without clearing them with their underlings first! Oh,
the humanity!
it's the part where they decide to ignore all law, precedent and
organization in doing so for their revolutionary ideology that gets
most people, mr dean.
mr merritt
the guys at the top didn't bother to consult the people who would
have to implement policies, to get their take on feasibility and
advisability
is exactly right. wilkerson is bitching that he wasn't consulted.
and that he wasn't is a VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM.
this is what perpetual revolutionists like cheney and rummy, people
who never met a law they didn't find too restricting to be obeyed,
don't get. the bureaucracy is not a functionless albatross. an
institutional bureaucracy is a suicide-prevention device. it is
designed to save people like rummy and cheney from
themselves.
now, one can argue about inertia and inefficiency and so forth. and
many freemarket religionists will. but inertia and inefficiency are
important and positive -- the most active and efficient governments
are totalitarian monstrosities. inertia forces consideration and
discourse before shooting off into a war where the primary cassus
bellum -- wmd -- doesn't even exist.
it has to be seen that a state without a preserving institutional
bureaucracy is exactly what men like rummy and cheney work toward
-- a dictatorial state, lightning quick and unburdened by
inefficiencies like law, discourse and fact-finding. this is why
they chose to manufacture evidence to sell the war they
ideologically needed with no regard for any actual facts --
criminal oversights that will shortly result in indictments. and
its why they work so hard to undermine and destroy institution on
every front.
|10.25.05 @ 5:06PM|#
Warren-
I loved that story about the window and valve from Feynman's book
as well. His books are one of the reasons I'm studying physics.
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