1115.org

The Decider has decided what we need in order to ensure, underwrite, guarantee and totally deliver the Iraq victory he has always been promising. One more layer of bureaucracy. Namely, one War Czar. Presumably so we can win the war on War just the way we won the war on Drugs.

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies…

Of course, he won’t have any budgetary authority. He won’t have any real way of enforcing his so-called power. All he’ll have is the seat of his pants, and a copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. And, hopefully, a very winning manner when he goes “Now, children! Children!”.

Still won’t help, though, will it? Because he won’t have any way of wresting command control away from dear old deluded Dick Cheney. That may be why “at least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position”.

“The very fundamental issue is, they don’t know where the hell they’re going,” said retired Marine Gen. John J. “Jack” Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. “So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, ‘No, thanks,’ ” he said.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Maybe there speaks a man who might actually be able to help us negotiate our way out of this unholy effing mess? Unfortunately, maybe all of them who are smart enough to do so, are by definition too smart to ever take this War Czar position?

Besides Sheehan, sources said, the White House or intermediaries have sounded out retired Army Gen. Jack Keane and retired Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, who also said they are not interested. Ralston declined to comment; Keane confirmed he declined the offer, adding: “It was discussed weeks ago.”
[...]
All three generals who declined the job have been to varying degrees administration insiders. Keane, a former Army vice chief of staff, was one of the primary proponents of sending more troops to Iraq and presented Bush with his plan for a major force increase during an Oval Office meeting in December. The president adopted the concept in January, although he did not dispatch as many troops as Keane proposed.

Ralston, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was named by Rice last August to serve as her special envoy for countering the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a group designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Sheehan, a 35-year Marine, served on the Defense Policy Board advising the Pentagon early in the Bush administration and at one point was reportedly considered by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Which doesn’t mean Bush isn’t going to get his War Czar. You can always find a General who’s stupid enough.

It just means that this plan isn’t going to follow the script that Bush and Cheney have written either.